


a constellation of you

by shatou



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (in ch6), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfortember, Crying Anakin Skywalker, Daily Ficlets, Fluff and Angst, Fluff without Plot, Forehead Kisses, Hugs, M/M, Post-Rako Hardeen Arc (Star Wars: Clone Wars), mute Anakin, post-hardeen fixit in ch6-7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatou/pseuds/shatou
Summary: “You, only you, will have stars that can laugh."—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,The Little PrinceDaily standalone ficlets based on Comfortember prompts; not chronological (or any kind of logical). Canon divergent AU where Anakin doesn’t fall and everything is soft and nearly nothing hurts.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 96
Kudos: 270





	1. rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin is captured on a mission gone wrong.

Darkness licks at his consciousness, luring Anakin with the promise of rest as he floats aimlessly in his insulated mind. There’s not a sound, not a drop of light, not even the gentle hum of the Force to tear through this endless, oppressive silence. The chafing of manacles on his wrist, the heavy chains on his ankles, the overstretched muscles on his back are all faint wisps of impressions, just a ghost of an ache that has pulsed and run its course through his body for days, days, days. Anakin blinks - even his eyelids are heavy, leaden - and arches forward. Lesions rub against fabric, the plain weave of it scrapes against still-weeping blisters, and he bites back a cry as he shudders in pain. He doesn’t know how far the burn spreads, but it has to take up at least the span of his front.

The poison he’s been fed days ago is still spreading in him like patterns of frost, tiny fractal tendrils multiplying and multiplying and now suddenly it’s taken hold of half of his body, addling him, placating him. He can’t purge it; the Force is muted within him, but not without. Though he can’t reach it, he can feel it coursing past him, the ebb and flow that glides right off his consciousness like raindrops on a slippery leaf. And perhaps that’s the most startling part of it. That he can feel, vaguely, Obi-Wan’s signature pulsing on the other side of their bond, yet unable to respond to it. The inhibitor cuts him off from the Force not completely, leaving him in a cube made of one-way glass. Others can’t feel him.

Obi-Wan’s light glimmers muffledly as a candle through a screen. Anakin holds onto it. Even the pain he’s managed to scratch out of himself earlier is short-lived, and now he’s teetering on the verge of unconsciousness again. There are a great many things that can be extracted from your mind when you’re passed out and your shields are lowered, vulnerable. He hangs between numbing pain and painful numbness. His Master is nearing - or maybe he’s imagining it, he’s not sure. He’s tempted to seek pain again, if only to ground himself. He’s going to lose awareness at this rate… he’s going to...

Suddenly, sounds flood the space.

Footsteps, chains. Clicking metal, something buzzing, sizzling. _Anakin._ It’s his voice. _“Anakin.”_ It’s Obi-Wan’s voice. Is it? Is it real? Anakin can’t see a thing. It’s still pitch black. He makes to part his lips; he can’t. Something’s holding them together, something that pulls at his face, tight on his skin, when he tries to open his mouth.

“Oh, _Force_ ... Anakin.” It’s definitely Obi-Wan’s voice, and it’s so close, so close he can hear the breath in his texture, catch the grains of his timbre, feel the cracking in his tone. A hand comes to his jaw, gentle and warm and Anakin knows immediately whose hand it is. _Master_ , he wants to say, wants to project, and he can do neither. He strains across the limit of the inhibitor, slamming against the fogged glass that separates their bond. He tilts his head, leans into the warm, calloused palm that he knows so well.

“It’s alright,” Obi-Wan whispers. A layer of something elastic is peeled off his face, and then a weight that Anakin hasn’t registered - some device made of steel - is lifted from his head. Too much light. He squeezes his already shut eyelids, brows furrowing, turning away though he doesn’t know where to. A lightsaber whizzes through the air, and Anakin tenses, anticipating the exact moment he’s going to crumble when the chains no longer hold him upright.

He doesn’t hit the ground. He doesn’t even fall, much. Obi-Wan has him draped over his sturdy form, arms wrapped securely around his body as he guides him down and down, until Anakin finds himself in the comfortable, cool dimness of a shadow. Even then, his eyes spasm and sting when he tries to open them. Anakin contents himself with nuzzling his face into the crook of Obi-Wan’s elbow as a warm hand comes up to his face once more, stroking his hair back, brushing down his cheek, then cupping the side of his neck, where the collar buzzes. A resounding _crack_ , and the device falls from his throat.

The Force rushes through him in a burst of soothing coolness. Obi-Wan’s presence wraps around him, light and silken, smoothing out every wrinkle of ache, tenderly covering every threadbare spot with his own weave, coaxing him to let the threads of pain be pulled out and released into the Force. Strength fuses into Anakin sinew by sinew; the poison dissipates palpably from his system; and his burns now itch but no longer ache.

“Master,” he rasps. The sound scratches its way out of his parched throat pathetically, more a wheeze than anything.

“You’re alright, Anakin.” His Master hushes him. Lips press to his crown, his forehead. “I’m here. You’re safe.” A kiss, firm, gentle, between his eyes. Anakin shivers, lifting his arm heavily. He means to hold onto Obi-Wan’s robes, but his Master catches his hand at once, lacing fingers with him. Obi-Wan’s lips brush his temple before he pulls away. Anakin smiles at the beat of his Master’s heart that reverberates in his own chest. His eyes slide open.

Obi-Wan’s eyes glisten beneath pinched brows in the backlit shade. _He’s so beautiful, always._ His fingers curling down onto the back of Obi-Wan’s hand. His vision blurs. He blinks, catching the worried creases on his Master’s forehead, the downward tug etched into the corners of his lips. He sighs, smiling still, soft-eyed, half-lidded, and finds the strength to fold his arm, bringing Obi-Wan’s knuckles to his lips. “I know, Master.”

His gratitude and relief billow into multicolored ribbons, and he, finally, drifts off.

—

He drifts back ashore from a cottony, dreamless sleep. Light is soft on the other side of his closed eyelids. The air reeks of bacta, a lot of bacta, that sharp, cloyingly sweet herbal smell that makes his nose scrunch even before he fully resurfaces. The various aches on his body awakes along with his other senses, but Anakin feels most keenly a warm point that pulses in his hand. Another palm, calloused in nearly the same places as his own, pressed to his own, unrelenting as his own. Something bright flutters in his chest.

Something flutters back on the other side of their Force bond.

Fabric rustles just as Anakin opens his eyes. Muffled sunlight glows softly golden on Obi-Wan’s rumpled hair, on the down on the back of the hand with which Obi-Wan stifles his yawn. Auburn locks fall into his tired eyes, straying over the shadows beneath. He’s not wearing his tabards. There’s a clumsily stitched line of bunched up fabric on the left shoulder seams of his tunic. Anakin knows this tunic. He mended it himself. That clumsy line was by his hand.

“You’re awake.” Obi-Wan’s thumb smoothes across the back of his hand. He’s smiling ever so softly, but Anakin can’t return it just yet. Lips pursed, he lingers his gaze on the grey that streaks his Master’s temple.

“‘Morning, Master…”

“I believe it is afternoon.” Obi-Wan tosses his head lightly towards the clock, eyes crinkling, and this time Anakin can’t stay the laughter that bubbles up in his throat. “Though I suppose that doesn’t matter… How are you feeling, Anakin?”

The muscles on his shoulders and back are tired; the burns on his chest are itching under bacta patches; his wrists are stiff with bandages; and when he tries to move his legs, there’s a sharp bolt of pain that he quickly diverts towards the Force at large. But through all that Obi-Wan’s hand is still warm and calloused and familiar against his own, and their bond is goldenly intact. “Feeling good,” he answers, to which Obi-Wan arches a brow, obviously skeptical. Anakin merely grins back. “How long… have I been asleep?”

“Two days. The healers had half a mind to put you in a bacta tank, should you remain unconscious for any longer.” A beat - of trembling lashes and one bated breath. His soft eyes grow glassy. “I’m glad you have woken up.”

Anakin’s heart seizes. “Master, you’ve been here all this time?”

“That hardly matters.” His tone takes a sharp turn towards a teasing casualness, but Anakin can hear the affirmative in his strained deflection. Obi-Wan runs a hand through his own hair, combing them all back from his forehead. “I’m… truly sorry, Anakin. That your false surrender turned into that devastating capture was a consequence of my carelessness—“

“No, Master,” Anakin cuts in firmly. “Don’t even start it. We both agreed on the plan. You couldn’t have known.” 

“I did think of alternatives, which would have taken longer, but wouldn’t have put you at risk; I shouldn’t have weighed efficiency over your—”

“Obi-Wan.” He plants one elbow back and pushes himself to sit up just to make a point. Swiftly Obi-Wan leans over with a gentle hand on his shoulder and a disapproving hush, easing him to back down. Anakin doesn’t relent. “You came for me. That’s all that matters.”

Obi-Wan sighs, again. He doesn’t seem convinced. _He never will be_ , Anakin thinks with a pang. So he turns his hand and slides his fingers down, brushes them towards Obi-Wan’s wrist, slips them under the inner sleeve, caresses his pulse. He runs his thumb over the little bump of carpal bone, rubs the pad of his fingers on the downy curve of his outer wrist. He plays, until Obi-Wan shifts closer and raises that hand and cups his face with it instead. Anakin turns his head, readily leaning his face into it.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he whispers, and tilts down to kiss Obi-Wan’s palm.

“Now you are just lying,” Obi-Wan accuses, exceedingly gentle from his voice to his eyes to his hand, hand that brushes up from Anakin’s cheek and cards into his hair. Anakin sighs contently as fingers knead into his scalp.

“Maybe I am.” He smiles, eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “Maybe you should take half my bed as punishment.”

“Anakin.”

“I’m serious.”

“You patently aren’t.”

His eyes slide open again. “Please?” He leans into Obi-Wan’s divine touch again. “You need some sleep as well. Some proper sleep.”

Obi-Wan sighs, but he’s not hiding the way his lips curve up, and Anakin grins delightedly at him in turn. “I should know better than this,” so he mutters even as he rises from his seat, climbs into the spot that Anakin was all too happy to scoot aside to cede. And by the time they’re pressed up close and his nose is comfortably buried in the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck, he already feels fit to fall asleep once more.


	2. first

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin’s first night after knighting.

Anakin’s hand twirls into thin air below his right ear.

It’s a mindless gesture - a habit that’ll take him a while to rid, he thinks with some annoyance, his hand falling unceremoniously back into his lap. After all, his braid was only cut just this morning; the singed ends still feel a little warm sometimes, although that is most definitely a phantom sensation. He shrugs and tosses the tiny wrench from his left hand back into his right. His focus turns back towards the motor in front of him once more.

Only to promptly be broken when warm fingers brush the shell of his ear.

Anakin can’t help a delighted (and maybe inappropriately so) little shiver. He’s almost forgotten that Obi-Wan has been sitting right behind him. Or, well, he hasn’t forgotten, but he’s gotten so used to this configuration - Obi-Wan on the couch with a datapad in hand, Anakin on the floor surrounded by a smattering of tools and a cleaning rag - that sinking into the light of his Master’s presence barely makes him feel any more scrutinized than when he’s alone. Besides, Obi-Wan has been reading, silent as a clam all night. The touch was unannounced, and Obi-Wan doesn’t linger for long: just a brief, smoothing press of thumb and forefinger on the severed ends of his Padawan braid.

“My apologies.” Obi-Wan retreats, chuckling. "Knight Skywalker."

Instead of turning around, Anakin tips his head back, nape pressed to the edge of the couch. He peers at Obi-Wan upside down, ignoring the warmth that's spreading across his face.  _ 'Knight Skywalker', Force. _ “What was that for?”

“It’s already starting to curl up.” Obi-Wan points out with half a laughter in his voice. Anakin straightens up again to touch the feathery split ends, flicking the singed lock down only to feel it bounce back against his skin. It does curl.

He turns around fully and is met with Obi-Wan’s soft-eyed smile. His heartbeat spikes; he smiles back, almost inadvertently, almost bashfully, gaze dropping for a very brief moment before meeting his eyes once more.

“How does it feel?” asks Obi-Wan.

“Uh, this?” Anakin says, dumbly, and winces internally because what  _ else _ could he have meant. He blinks and glides on. “You mean when you cut it, or… now?”

“Both, I’d say.” There’s the strangest tremble in the Force, then, a timid sense of wonder blooming in tiny, warm bursts, all tamped down and retracted behind Obi-Wan’s shields before Anakin can even perceive it properly. Anakin worries the inside of his lip, absently wiping his hand on the cloth.

“It’s... thrilling, when you cut my hair.” He smiles with a touch of daydream. “I didn’t really notice the heat of the blade. I didn’t feel anything or see anyone… other than you. Just you, Master.” The ceremonial lightsaber was held to his ear, in a way that it could easily just slice through him; he felt trust so profound it’d have made his eyes glassy if the pride in Obi-Wan’s minute smile and warm eyes at the moment hadn’t already. He did distantly hear the quiet hiss of the blade, but his mind had been fixated on the gentle swirls of warm, glowing sentiments in their bond.

“...And now, it’s strange,” Anakin continues, hand rising to the spot again. The strands are loose and slightly wavy from having been tightly braided. “It’s like it’s never gone. I’d feel it on my shoulder still.” Maybe their Force bond will feel the same when it vanishes. He’s not sure how it’s going to happen: supposedly it’s not a brutal severance, but a gradual fade, a slow loosening of the strings until the instrument plays no more, and then he shall not be able to feel Obi-Wan’s impressions dapple through his mind ever again, not even when he lowers all of his shields, on his knees at his old Master’s mental walls. He cannot imagine that, so he tugs himself back to the present, and grins, and shrugs. “I’ve had it for so long that I keep thinking it’s still there. Then again, it’s probably the same for you, right, Master?”

In a fraction of a second Obi-Wan’s gaze drops, thick lashes fluttering down for just a tenth of a beat; a forlorn shadow passes by his face. It’s all gone quick, but Anakin understands now. “...Oh,” he says. Obi-Wan was knighted by… Anakin doesn’t know, really. By Yoda, someone once told him - but it doesn’t matter, because whoever did cut Obi-Wan’s braid was not Qui-Gon. Anakin blinks owlishly, mouth dry. So the abashed curiosity, the wistful wondering— “I’m sorry, Master, I…”

“It’s alright, Anakin. I asked.” Obi-Wan shakes his head with an easy smile. He runs his finger from the stem of the now-gone Padawan braid up along Anakin’s scalp, towards the back of his crown, and gently strokes into his tied-back tuft of hair. Anakin gapes at him a little bit, eyes falling half-mast; if he was only pink before then he’s definitely flushing now. It’s not like he’s never had this reaction before; at one point - probably around the time Anakin was about fifteen, sixteen something, give or take - the gentle manner in which his Master handles him became startlingly  _ pleasant _ . Obi-Wan always carefully pulled away, equally as red each time, and never acknowledged it as if he thought ignoring will make it go away; and Anakin embarrassedly, stubbornly did the same.

Obi-Wan’s not pulling away, this time. His hand lingers, less combing through the locks and more fiddling with the roots, where the hair tie lies. Every minuscule tug tinkles Anakin’s nerve endings like bells, like glass wind chimes in a summer wind. All is forgotten - the oil stained rag on the floor, the half taken apart motor, the wrench and screwdrivers and micro-tools that scatter around it - as he leans blissfully into the touch. Time congeals to a honeyed consistency.

When Obi-Wan draws his hand back, Anakin feels fingertips grazing his earlobe, his jaw. By the look on his Master’s face, it must have been accidental. Obi-Wan seems pensive, unknowing, his hand now hovering aimlessly at his datapad and Anakin just wants to tug it back to where it belongs.

“I won’t cut this,” Anakin says instead, as if in reassurance to some unvoiced wistful musing. He begins to put his tools back into their box, a clanging rattle as each falls into place. “I’ll grow it out.”

“Of course. I imagine you are quite ready to forgo those monthly refreshment cuts.” A smile curves across Obi-Wan’s lips. Anakin only laughs. His gaze follows as Obi-Wan rises to his feet, yawning, stretching, then offering down a hand. Once upon a time he has looked upon his Master from this angle and marveled at the Jedi that Obi-Wan was, and still is, but now he’s no longer a child. Now, as he takes Obi-Wan’s hand and pulls himself to his full height, he’s looking down rather than up to meet gentle grey-blue eyes. He grins, devilish. Obi-Wan catches up at once, raising his brows at him as if asking  _ What now? _

“I want to sleep with you tonight.” Anakin says, deliberately pausing before correcting himself. “I mean, sleep in your bed.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even bat an eye, disappointingly enough; though one brow does arch down in playful mock disapproval. “I told you to give it a few months, didn’t I?”

“You said a month, actually.”

“I distinctly remember that I suggested at least three.”

“We made a bargain, Master. You agreed on one month after the ceremony, or after my first successful mission as Knight, whichever comes first.” Anakin tilts his head closer, triumphant with his detailed case. He asked a while ago. It wasn’t pretty when he asked: Anakin’s graduation had been announced preemptively despite him lacking one last trial, and Obi-Wan was about to depart on a mission to retrieve a certain antidote - a shaky, risky mission that had killed four other Jedi. In his best efforts to rein in his panic and not spill the truth of his deep-hearted attachment (that Obi-Wan would certainly disapprove of), Anakin blurted out his knighthood request. It’s not uncommon for a newly knighted Jedi to request something of their Master: a trip, datapads, lightsaber techniques, even new garbs. It’s a little less common to ask for a physical relationship - but it does happen. And it happened.

And Obi-Wan said yes.

“Either way,” Anakin continues, unable to help a vague, smitten smile at the memory. Even if they can’t be together as civilians could have, he tells himself that he can be contented with just sharing intimacy. But that’s for later. “I said  _ sleep in your bed _ . Won’t do anything, I promise. I…” He feels a little bashful at this, but he ventures. “I just want to sleep next to you tonight, Master.”

Obi-Wan smiles, and squeezes his hand. The shake of his head is in amused defeat, playful only, because moments later Anakin finds himself tugged along into his Master’s bedroom, joy bright in his heart.

Obi-Wan chides him for slinging his tunic over the back of a chair and bars Anakin access to the bed until he folds it properly. Anakin retaliates by, once he’s in bed, rolling on top of him and over. They tangle in the blanket for a while, limbs flailing, hands pushing into pillows and mattress and each other’s face, huffing and laughing and  _ What are you doing, Anakin?  _ until Anakin has the side of the bed closer to the wall and window, leaving his Master with the open edge. His arms latch onto Obi-Wan as soon as they’re relatively settled, still panting from laughter.

“You said you were just going to sleep,” Obi-Wan grouses, nudging his leg away, yet draping an arm over to fiddle with Anakin’s hair tie.

“I haven’t done anything, have I?”

His Master sighs. “You  _ are _ going to be the death of me, young one.”

“I don’t like it when you say that, Master,” Anakin murmurs, arms tightening. The tie comes loose, and Obi-Wan’s fingers now properly card into that little tuft of hair, gently teasing it out. “I don’t like to put death and you in the same sentence.”

“Far too benevolent for your own good, my old Padawan.” Obi-Wan’s teasing tone is perfectly even, but he guides Anakin in until their foreheads touch. Anakin’s eyes flutter.

“Speak for yourself, my old Master,” he manages.

A huff of a laugh, and they fall silent. Their breathing is evenly matched in counterpoint, rise to one’s fall, fall to the other’s rise, in-and-then-out, calming rhythms that deepen and deepen. Through their bond goldenly intact, Anakin feels the near physically perceptible weight of Obi-Wan’s signature, mist that is warm, light that is solid, colors that play a melody. If only he could keep this forever, he thinks, and burrows himself closest to Obi-Wan’s shields possible as the curtains of sleep slowly descend on him.

That is, until Obi-Wan breaks the silence.

“Anakin.” His Master doesn’t sound the least groggy yet. “Why did you want to sleep here, of all places?”

Anakin opens his eyes. “Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he mumbles, smiling it off, and his eyes fall shut again as he mimics Obi-Wan’s chiding tone, telling him to go to sleep.

It’s the truth, though not all of it. It isn’t just about the night, the bed, or the warmth. Anakin thinks of tomorrow, when he opens his eyes in a rosy dawn. He thinks of Obi-Wan’s face less than an arm’s stride away, of splaying auburn locks thick lashes on pale skin. He thinks of the constellation of faint, very faint freckles that you have to be that up close to notice.

It’s because that is what Anakin wants to see, the first day he wakes up as a Knight.


	3. nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their bond is strong, even in their sleep.

Inky clouds plume from afar and rove overhead, submerging his vision in darkness. He feels movements in the spasming of his muscles, the phantom whirling of air currents about his limbs; at the same time, it doesn’t feel like he’s moving. The environment opens around him, cold hard metal and pale red force fields, and crisscrossing walkways and platforms, all steel, all too narrow with hardly a railing in sight. 

He’s watching someone, he realizes, simultaneously from behind their eyes and from above. All around him are durasteel walls that continue on into an endless, escapeless corridor. The only way to go is forward or backward. Backward is all lines, puckering into a vanishing point that inhales and devours in your gaze like a hungry visual void. Forward is yet another force field, a translucent pane made of rippling light, radiating heat. He can’t pass through. He can go back, in theory, but something roils in his stomach and he looks ahead and knows he cannot. He can’t go back.

The only thing Anakin can do is wait.

How he wishes he could have done otherwise.

On the other side of the red field, there are more red - red flashes of dual red blades, dulled red sparks as a green blade parries, red, red, red blooming on the beige loose-weave of Jedi robes. In that moment, the ground lurches beneath Anakin’s feet, splitting him out of the Padawan whom he has been briefly inhabiting. The dreamscape itself is crumbling under Obi-Wan’s suppressed grief.

 _Master, no!_ There’s no telling where he ends and Obi-Wan begins. The words seem to be coming from his own psyche as much as from Obi-Wan’s memory, a desperate call of them both to their respective Masters. The force fields begin to melt and spread, red coating everything, a pale, almost coral red that slowly thickens into something sticky and sickly warm, crimson, glistening. The pang in his chest - is it Obi-Wan’s or is it his own?

 _Master… Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan!_ He has to wake up, or he has to wake Obi-Wan up. Already his breaths are coming short and his eyes sockets feel hot, feverish, his eyes stinging with unshed tears. A red blade blazes before him yet again. This time, it is in his hand. He glances into a reflexive surface that somehow just happens to be there, and he sees nothing there but two spots of dulled, cruel yellow for eyes on an amorphous column of darkness. Suddenly the whole corridor is mirrors, and there he sees himself: darkness; no, Darkness. Revolving, evolving, everchanging Darkness, reflections ricocheting between mirrors to infinity.

It rattles him, and it rattles the dreamscape. Anakin has secrets of his own, doors in the complex of his mind that he locks even to Obi-Wan. Again he doesn’t know if this is his or his Master’s, if he’s helping him resurface at all or if he’s only dragging Obi-Wan’s already trembling mind down deeper into the ocean trench. The soil beneath his feet is crumbling; the world is shaking from within. He doesn’t have a body; this is not even his mind. _Obi-Wan, please, can you hear me?_ A subtle flicker of quiet before the ‘scape quakes anew. _Master, it’s Anakin._

The figure of Maul springs out unbidden from the dark in a cacophony of jittering negatives, of clashing consonants, of blood that turns black and black shadows that melts into scalding drizzles. Unvoiced screams paint the world in shades of anguish and anger. The entire dreamscape seems to upend and turn in on itself. The implosion shakes Anakin’s psyche out; he awakes bolting upright in bed, eyes wide in the dark, panting softly - but his focus is not on himself.

Obi-Wan is still in there.

The night lamp flicks on with a nudge in the Force. Anakin turns to the man beside him in bed. Obi-Wan lays on his side, facing away from him, knees pulled nearly to his chest. His shoulders are shaking, bare skin dotted with sweat. Anakin places a hand on it; it’s hot as red coal beneath his palm.

“Master,” he whispers, soft, lowering himself to circle an arm around Obi-Wan’s curled up figure, coaxing him onto his back, hoping he would loosen. The warm tint of the lamplight does nothing to lessen the ashen pallor of his Master’s countenance. Obi-Wan’s eyes are restless beneath his eyelids, lashes trembling in time with the quivering of his lips. “Master. Obi-Wan. Wake up.” Anakin brushes the hair from his damp forehead, tucks it behind his ear, runs his own knuckles over Obi-Wan’s brow and temple and cheek, as gentle as he could in his frantic concern. Obi-Wan’s lips part slightly, taking in a hitched breath.

Anakin peels back the blanket, hoping the nightly air on his bare skin would cool his feverishly heated body. He hovers over Obi-Wan, his heart rent into pieces by the sight of his Master's silent suffering, the blood drained from his face, shivering in cold sweat. "Please, Obi-Wan…" He bends down, leaning his forehead against Obi-Wan's, reaching out in the Force. Even in this state, or perhaps especially in this state, Obi-Wan's shields are drawn high and tight. Eyes fallen shut, Anakin wraps his presence around Obi-Wan’s signature; he doesn’t press, doesn’t look for the cracks in the walls, but simply rests there, where he can consciously, lucidly exude warmth. He draws up impressions of honeyed sunsets on Coruscanti rooftops, of cottony seeds carried by the winds on a Felucian flowering hill, of the crunch of red-gold leaves beneath worn boots in rural Alderaan. _I’m here, Master._ Breathless laughter and flushed smiles, hand brushing hand under a wide clear morning sky. _Come back to me._

Bit by bit, Obi-Wan resurfaces. His light is febrile, agitated. Tremor seeps from behind his mental walls as his physical body shudders beneath Anakin’s splayed hands. Anakin presses a kiss to his forehead and draws back, watching as Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes tighter and heaves in a breath. He smooths his Master’s hair back again, and Obi-Wan’s eyes spasm, flutter, before finally sliding open. Pale eyes shift, flit all over the place, unseeing for a moment, before his gaze seems to settle.

“Anakin…”

“Yes.” Anakin breathes a sigh of relief, pulling back as Obi-Wan props himself up. He lays a hand on Obi-Wan’s back, slowly stroking up and down his spine. “Don’t apologize, Master,” he says preemptively, tone hushed. “I’m here for you.” He pauses for a moment, pursing his lips. “I saw… I saw your dream.”

Obi-Wan’s gaze snaps to him, wide-eyed as if caught in the headlights, and Anakin bites back a grimace, mentally slapping his forehead. _Kark, should've asked him if he wanted to talk about it first._

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me, because I already saw what… Not, not on purpose, of course! I just found myself in your dream, I was also trying to wake up.” Obi-Wan’s staring at him, brows all furrowed and angled up and his eyes are glassy and red-rimmed and a wash of _guilt_ surges from Obi-Wan’s psyche and Anakin panics. He casts aside his catastrophic attempts to salvage what he has meant to be comforting words, and folds his arms around Obi-Wan.

To his relief, Obi-Wan relaxes and melts against him, face in the crook of Anakin’s neck, breath stuttering across his skin. Anakin presses his cheek atop Obi-Wan’s head, thumb rubbing gentle circles into bare skin. “I only mean that,” he murmurs, “none of this bothers me. I’m glad I’m here.”

“...So am I.” The words, so soft, lose themselves in panting breaths, but Anakin still hears their rustle, and his heart soars.

Obi-Wan’s breathing evens out into quietude, the rise-and-fall rhythms of his shoulders intimately tucked under Anakin’s palm. Silence descends upon them. Anakin turns and trails kisses along the pale, zigzagging line that is the natural parting of Obi-Wan’s hair, then on his hairline, down to his greying temple. Even the scent of his sweat is so dear. He smiles against skin when he hears Obi-Wan faintly chuckle.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” He pulls back, both hands cupping his Master’s face, his wan smile. “I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

“I’ll come with.” Obi-Wan’s hand circles around his wrist. Anakin nods and twines their hands together as they slide out of bed. The lights turn on one by one on their path to the kitchenette. His Master doesn’t scold him for his use of the Force this time.

Anakin sets to work, flicking on the kettle and opening the tea drawer where palm-sized tins and paper bag packets neatly line up one after the other. Being raised by Obi-Wan means he’s picked up his share of knowledge, however surface level, on various types of tea and their general properties. He selects a packet of Kamil tea, for its calming effect. It’s good for sleep.

The water is whistling when Obi-Wan, eyes on his own hands and hands on his ceramic, asks: “How much did you see?”

Anakin looks up, surprised - he thought they weren’t going to talk about it at all. The light of the kitchenette comes from above, accentuating the shadows under Obi-Wan’s eyes and at the corners of his mouth. He seems so tired. Anakin scoots in closer, a hand on the small of his back.

“I saw Darth Maul and… Qui-Gon. Just a bit of the duel.” He chews the inside of his mouth, fiddling with the packet of loose tea. “The rest is abstract. Mirrors and shadows and some things.” There’s no time, nor reason, nor a will, to wonder much about the darkness. His hand brushes Obi-Wan’s over the teapot. “Don’t worry about it, Master.”

Obi-Wan hums thoughtfully, a hand over his mouth, stroking his beard. The gesture is usually that of pensiveness, but now it seems he’s doing so because he doesn’t know what to do with his hand otherwise. And then he sighs, and drops it. “I’m still rather sorry that you had to witness…” He waves a hand with a rueful smile. “...all of this.”

Anakin frowns. “Obi-Wan. You don’t have to apologize.”

“I mean as in I deplore it.” There’s a twinkle of playfulness back in Obi-Wan’s eyes, however faint it is. “It is quite embarrassing, after all, don’t you think? Somebody my age…”

“You would not have said that if it were me,” Anakin counters at once. He pivots and wedges himself between the counter and Obi-Wan, to look him in the eye. “Would you, Master? If I had a nightmare—“ which he has had plenty before, they both know “—would you have disparaged me so?”

“Certainly not.” A near musical pause. Obi-Wan regards him intently, then gently, then his smile softens. “Thank you, dear one.” His hand cups Anakin’s jaw. Anakin just leans into his touch, circling both arms around his waist. There’s nothing more precious than moments of tranquility. If Obi-Wan’s sleep - already rare as it is - was disrupted by some cruel workings of the unconscious mind, then Anakin is determined to make up for the loss of peace.

Behind him, the kettle switches off with an audible _fwip_ , as the water comes to a boil.


	4. anxiety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin rarely ever sees Obi-Wan nervous. It’s rather unexpected when he does.

“Anakin, on your left!”

Anakin whirls around and cleanly slices through the droid’s arms. He drops his upper body to leverage a Force-augmented kick squarely in the thing’s chest control board. It comes flying back, bringing a column of droids along as it crashes. There’s no time to even look at the commotion; in an instance Anakin is back to deflecting shot after blaster shot, crushing incoming droids and throwing them back with the Force, while the clones advance behind him, never ceasing fire. He scans the battlefield for half a second and—

“Careful!” shouts Anakin. He leaps, deflects two bolts mid-air and lands on his feet then knees, his blade carrying the full momentum as it rends in halves the droideka that has been aiming at Obi-Wan. No matter how tightly they are surrounded, how high of a focus is demanded of him, his eyes always seem to find its way to his Master. Even the rippling sense of danger in the Force comes slow compared to his personal sense.

Obi-Wan spins around gracefully; no movement of his goes to waste as he catches one blaster bolt, refracts another into a nearby clanker, and ends that one same arc of his lightsaber with an effortless swipe through another droid’s head.

“Save my life three more times until we’re even,” he says, grinning.

“Two,” Anakin huffs, sending two more battle droids crashing back in their line before he even rises to his feet. “That clanker on my left earlier didn’t count.”

“Why not?” Obi-Wan singsongs, ducking a bolt and fluidly cuts up to deflect two more. His feet slide and twist, heels drawing semicircles in the dirt and raising clouds of dust around his ankle. If it’s up to him, Anakin could watch this for hours, or even days, on end - just Obi-Wan deadly in his dance, walking the tightrope line between the peacekeeping general and a killing machine.

Anakin doesn’t really walk that line. He kills when he must, and he must when the safety of his beloved is on the line.

“Well,“ he says, skewering yet another battle droid without even looking, “I was already going for it.” His eyes still can’t tear away from the sway of Obi-Wan’s tabard-ends, or the single drop of sweat that rolls distractingly over his larynx as he tips back his head. “Say, what do I get if I win, Master?”

Obi-Wan drives his blade into a destroyer from behind. “How about a surprise?” He leaps back before the droid explodes.

“Really?” Anakin whips around and draws a full circle around him. Four droids crumple.

Obi-Wan hums a sound of assent, and Anakin brightens, a bouquet-like burst within their bond. “Concentrate, Anakin.”

They resume their focus.

They don’t really settle the score in the end - before the droid army suddenly retreated, Anakin managed to strike down another droid that crept up to Obi-Wan from behind while he’s facing three others; that said, Rex landed an extraordinarily well-timed EMP bomb and squashed two destroyers that were aiming at General Kenobi; so Anakin claimed that as part of his score and there was contention, of course, especially when an exasperated Cody chimed in. Whatever the case, Obi-Wan neither repudiates nor acknowledges his claims as he ushers Anakin into a tent while the rest of the clones set up camp.

“So I’ll just say that we are even,” Anakin says, breathless.

“Anakin…” Obi-Wan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sit down,” he orders sternly, rummaging through his pack for first aid. Given that Anakin’s got one mangled shoulder and a quite deftly torn gash at his flank on the other side, he’s in no place to protest. He just lowers himself to the mat on the ground, half releasing the throbbing of his wounds into the Force, half distracting himself from the ache by watching Obi-Wan’s arm guards move along with his searching hands.

“Don’t tell me,” Obi-Wan begins, as he comes back with the proper equipment, Anakin narrowing his eyes at the smell of rubbing alcohol mingled with bacta, “that you let that silly game  _ distract _ you to the point of endangering yourself.”

“Alright, Master, then I won’t tell you that.” Anakin shrugs - which is a very bad move when your shoulder has just been hit with a double bolt. He grits his teeth and grins.

“Anakin, really.” Obi-Wan levels him a disapproving look. Anakin tilts his head back at him in challenge, to which his Master merely furrows his brows and shakes his head. “You know better than this. You are a  _ general _ , Force’s sake.” 

“I’m fine.”

“You are not.” Obi-Wan kneels down. “You worry me this way, do you understand?”

_ Maybe I like it when you worry about me. _ Anakin’s gaze wanders to the vee of Obi-Wan’s tunic.  _ Just a little. _ “Right, right, I get it.”

Obi-Wan sighs and leans up to cut away the torn fabric, discarding it all to the ground before grabbing a cleaning cloth. The blood isn’t visible on dark robes, but the blots stand out on Anakin’s skin like equinox flowers, gut-churningly red. Breaths bated, nearly transfixed, Anakin watches as Obi-Wan minutely wipes the edges of his wounds. His face is so close Anakin can feel the puffs of his breath on his own skin. He reaches up with his intact hand to brush a lock of hair out of Obi-Wan’s face.

“Sit stilll,” is all he gets.

Obi-Wan shifts up to roll a large patch of bacta around the disfigured flesh, then dresses it with a layer of gauze. He moves to Anakin’s side, the alcohol-soaked cloth stinging where it touches lesioned skin. He cleans, he smooths down bacta patches, he bandages, calmly, gently, swiftly, but wordlessly. 

Maybe Obi-Wan really is mad at him.

“...I won’t be getting that surprise, then?” he ventures, smiling, hoping to alleviate the mood. Obi-Wan draws back and looks at him like he’s just proposed to run for Supreme Chancellor.

“Is that what this is about?” Obi-Wan rubs a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have said that…”

“Oh come on, I was  _ joking _ .” Anakin leans forward , hand closed around Obi-Wan’s wrist. No matter how well he thinks he knows his Master by now, Obi-Wan’s capacity to find a way to  _ blame himself _ remains unpredictable every time.

“Right,” says Obi-Wan, sounding not quite dismissive, but vaguely unconvinced still. Anakin makes a noise of defeat as his Master simply turns away to clean up the bandages.

When the dirty cloths and bloodstained rags have been done away with, and the only source of smell of bacta left is the patches on Anakin themselves, they lay out their sleeping bags, zipped together into one large mat to sleep on, and Obi-Wan settles beside him. With one arm draped over his forehead and a slight crease between his brows, his gaze lands on a spot somewhere overhead, aimless - the picture of General Kenobi deep in thoughts. It’s unusual, though, the way his lower lip is slightly puckered, held down by the barest edge of teeth; or the way his breaths seem shallow, quick. Obi-Wan is not quite at rest, and Anakin can’t possibly think of a reason why. Battle wounds like these are nothing - they have both suffered worse, and Obi-Wan was always the one to tell  _ him _ not to fuss. He’ll have a word or two to counter it if his Master really fusses right now, but as it stands, Obi-Wan is quiet and disquieted.

Eventually, the silence is broken, though not in any way Anakin could’ve anticipated.

“I do have something for you, Anakin,” Obi-Wan murmurs in the discretion of darkness.

Anakin turns to him, puzzled. “Master, you’re still on that?”

“I am not talking about today’s impromptu game, if that’s what you mean by  _ still on that _ . I have had it for a while…” Obi-Wan sighs, somehow sounding conflicted. “Never mind. Go to sleep, Anakin.”

“No, you can’t say something like that and leave it at that.” Anakin nearly rolls over onto his side and is starkly reminded that he cannot by a stab of pain in his shoulder. “Tell me!” His Master puts a hand on his forehead as if keeping a petulant child at arm’s length, and Anakin half laughs, half makes a noise of frustration.

“Perhaps after we got back,” Obi-Wan says, uncertainty tilting his tone. “Please, Anakin. You need to rest.”

There’s something about that  _ Please _ that speaks more of desperation than exasperation, and so Anakin concedes with a grumbled  _ Fine _ .

With sunrise, backup comes. They receive news that Separatist troops have pulled out completely; with that their campaign comes to an unceremonious, pointless end. The rest is just procedure as they load their troops and themselves onto Republic vessels, receive obligatory medical care in the medbay, and find a way to compose a report that doesn’t sound as nonsensical as the assignment itself has been. As always, Obi-Wan holds himself impeccably before their commanders and answers Council comm calls with his usual irreproachable manners and precision. Little is out of the ordinary, except for his slightly shifting gaze when Anakin smiles at him. Except for his hands bunched in his robes, something that he himself has taught a younger Anakin to do to conceal nervousness.

Anakin doesn’t know how to address it. He frankly has never seen Obi-Wan this… this  _ anxious _ , and, once again, he cannot figure out why. The mission is done, the Council is about as disappointed and bored with it as they are, their troops are relatively unscathed, and the report is actually the  _ pièce de résistance  _ of the entire campaign under Obi-Wan’s skillful hand. Is it the contemplation of their oft futile efforts of war that is making him sigh shudderingly every other hour during their trip back, or is it something else?

It’s nighttime in the capital of Coruscant when they touch down. Per usual protocol, debriefing is due tomorrow morning, and Anakin is more than ready to take a proper water shower before passing out in bed. Beside him, Obi-Wan seems… even tenser than before. He’s never been like this: he’s always been good at hiding it in the rare cases where he’s truly nervous, and he has said as much himself.

They round a corner. Before they reach the lift tube, Obi-Wan quietly speaks up. “About that one thing that I meant to give you.” He pauses, they halt. Silence.

“Ah,” says Anakin, eloquently.  _ Of all the things... _

“Would you like to…”

“Yes! Yes. Of course.” Anakin gathers himself. “You’re not going to tell me what it is before I see it, huh Master?”

Obi-Wan lets out a small nervous laugh, relaxing a little. “What’s the fun in that?”

Obi-Wan leads him not to their dormitories. Anakin’s curiosity grows and grows as they cross halls and traverse corridors, past the tower of administration and into the territory of the intelligence unit. The communication center, one of their well-frequented places in this part of the Temple, turns out not to be their destination this time. They go deeper into the storage rooms section, and come to a stop before an unassuming grey door. Obi-Wan opens it; he’s flushing, nearly, with a lip-bitten smile. Anakin looks at him questioningly for a moment, then steps in.

The room is lined with stacks of chairs and cargo crates, various shades of grey washed in the bluish tint of the lighting. In the very middle of a room stands a table; on top of the table lies something oblong and elegant and gleaming. A few steps closer and it reveals itself to be a sleek white device accented in silver. Sharp cyan lights emit through the plugging ports in the middle and the slits on the side.

Anakin’s jaw drops.

It’s a crystal power converter, conceived to withstand ultra energy-dense crystals - of the caliber of kyber - unlike the industrial standard converter found in common power generators. It’s not a mass-produced model, not even a high-end product, but one among about a few dozen unique hand-crafted works by the nomad engineer Renja of Bar’leth. The item is so rare that even pictures of it on the HoloNet are rare; and Renja, notoriously eccentric, had a habit of disappearing without a trace for years before resurfacing again. With Renja’s creations, the issue is not even the  _ price _ , but a combination of determination and luck and even then, Anakin hasn’t succeeded in acquiring it.

Until now, that is. He rounds the table, fingers just brushing the converter as he breathlessly admires the craftsmanship. The shell is assembled in delightful asymmetry, slanted lines calculated to the millimeter; shimmering silver fills the weld between smooth, off-white pieces. The finish is akin to ceramic glaze, but Anakin knows the material is augmented songsteel. It hums in his hands when he picks it up, as if already catching on to his kyber crystal’s frequency.

He looks up to Obi-Wan, still dazed. “How…?”

“I came across it some time ago,” Obi-Wan says, as if it’s something one can just do. He’s smiling, though. He’s smiling so brightly, blue light catching in glittering specks in his eyes, his eyes where Anakin finds himself reflected, starry-eyed, overjoyed. The tension breaks out into a hundred tiny bubbles, iridescent in incandescent gratitude twined with dedication, all mutual. “You’ve been talking about upgrading the generator in your starfighter for a while. I thought it would make a good gift, in commemoration of your, erm,” here Obi-Wan stops and fiddles with his sleeves so  _ blatantly _ , “of your two years of Knighthood, let us say, belated though this is. I wasn’t quite sure if it would— truly please you, but… well…”

The device is set back onto the table, all but forgotten as Anakin, heedless of his own injuries, wraps his arms around his Master - his Master who has listened through all of his frustrated rousing every time another item slips through his grasp, his Master who has  _ remembered _ all of that, who somehow thought of him enough to find this gem for him when even he couldn’t track it down after all these years. His Master, the immaculate Negotiator, has been fiddling and fidgeting all day because he’s not sure if his gift would please Anakin.

“I love it.” He buries his nose into Obi-Wan’s hair. “Of course I love it.” Force knows his nose is stinging inside, as his eyes prickle. It isn’t even about the item anymore. “I love you.”

Obi-Wan’s laughter rings beautifully in its abashedness. “Now, there’s hardly any need to be so dramatic.” And yet his hands brush up Anakin’s back, circling around him a returning embrace.

“You should get used to it, Master.” Anakin grins, pulling back only to steal a kiss from Obi-Wan’s lips. “I love you. I always love you. And everything that you give me, so there’s no need to be nervous, either.” He kisses Obi-Wan again, light and sweet. “Ever.”

“Hm, I wasn’t aware that I was so obvious.” Obi-Wan sighs, the rest of the tension melting away.

Anakin holds him closer. “Only to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if this story seems like an absolute structureless mess it’s because it is lksdjfk i didn’t know what to do with the prompt i’m sorry


	5. cuddling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have precious little time to spend in bed with each other.

Sometimes, all they do in bed is feel one another.

Just feel, and not much more. Just feel, gilded fingertips on marred skin, calloused palms on fresh scars, calves pressed against shins and ankles knocking. Just feel, tender and deliberate, feel each other warm and breathing and bottle up those memories in their hearts for darker days. Having the opportunity to lay in bed together is a privilege, and time to do so is a luxury. Satisfying the pleasure of the flesh is but one tenth of the matter, if not less. Sometimes they are wrung out from body to mind, heavy-hearted from the death and destruction they have been forced to witness, and no one is able to convince them to get some shut-eye except for each other. Then, they would find themselves just breathing in each other’s scent, basking in each other’s presence, comforting each other in silence, holding onto each other like hope. Their signatures would glow and pulse as one: gold and silver braiding together, Anakin’s meteor showers and Obi-Wan’s polar lights, Anakin’s breezy sky and Obi-Wan’s warm shelter, Anakin’s mechanic oil and Obi-Wan’s writer ink.

Anakin likes to savor Obi-Wan’s presence one sense at a time. Right now, his eyes are firmly shut, and each and every single one of his nerve endings are attuned to the smallest brush of calluses, the lightest snag, as Obi-Wan’s hand cards through his hair. Even those unruly curls seem to tame beneath his Master’s dear, dawdling fingers; knots and tangles only dare to stall for seconds at a time before they surrender to Obi-Wan’s patient combing. Finger pads knead into his scalp, rubbing slow patterns down from the highest point of his occiput, massaging into the tender, sensitive junction between skull and neck. If he keeps on this way, he might be able to purge every throbbing worry from Anakin’s mind, pulling it all out with his fingertips.

Anakin’s lips part in a molten sigh. His own flesh hand is no match, clumsily pawing at the dip of Obi-Wan’s naked waist, the toned muscles sloping from rib to small of the back; he gives up and simply tips his head forward to feel soft hair against his lips. Obi-Wan’s hand continues down his spine, lingering, tracing it knob by knob all the way from neck to tailbone; then moving back up again only to brush from shoulder blade to shoulder blade; absentmindedly, inadvertently raising two perpendicular lines of gentle goosebumps.

“You’re drawin’ something, Master,” Anakin mumbles, his words sleep-slurred as he scoots in closer, back sweetly curving to Obi-Wan’s caress in a silent bid for more. “A cross.”

“A kite,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “Or the bones thereof.” He noses the hollow of Anakin’s throat, and Anakin sighs. Now that Obi-Wan’s voice has risen, diffusing into the silence like ink into water, his presence shifts from tactile to auditory. Anakin basks in his breaths, rhythmic and reassuring, and his huffs of laughter, light and gentle.

“I never had one,” Anakin continues, smiling close-eyed, listening to the rustling of sheets beneath Obi-Wan’s body, the sound of it bearing a slight, scratchy overtone of cotton brushing against downy skin - Obi-Wan is shifting closer to him unbidden.

“Truly?”

“Tatooine is either sandstorm or windless. No inbetween.” He shivers a little as Obi-Wan’s hand trails to his iliac crest, thumb skimming over a newer scar. “A kite could never take flight in your hand, or you would both be buried in sand.”

Obi-Wan lets out a thoughtful  _ Hmmm _ . Even in something so simple, he sounds musical. He always does, even when he isn’t carrying any tune - be it when he gives a speech, or quips in a banter, or lets loose his control and dissolves in trembling, steaming breaths. “I would suggest we make one sometime,” he says, and oh, how delightful it is, the way he lingers on  _ we _ , “but perhaps you don’t need that.” His smile is audible in the shape of his words. “You can walk the sky on your own.”

Anakin laughs lightly by way of answering. Still maneuvering himself in the pinkish darkness behind his eyelids, he clutches Obi-Wan closer still, nose pressed into his hair. Sounds melt into aroma, now, as Anakin inhales deeply. The warm sage and sweet peppermint of his soap are merely top notes; beneath is the faint salt of sweat - just a residual scent - and the perpetual, clean smell of fabric softener that Anakin can’t help associating with him. The base note of his fragrance remains indescribable, something essentially him, something simultaneously as sweet as vanilla and as bitter as tea, but much more elegant, and comforting. He smells like home; his smell is home.

Somewhere amidst all of this, Obi-Wan has started to hum a tune. It fills the air sweetly; it rumbles between their chests; and he adores it so. It was only recently that his Master has begun to do this more often, despite having a rich, bright voice. Distinctly Anakin remembers the young, smooth-faced, novel Master Obi-Wan once was - gentle but firm, reliable but strict, and apart from the few hummed lullabies on feverish nights, he did not allow himself much recreation if at all. But he relaxed as their bond grew, and after the one time Anakin sang before the Yiwa on Ansion, he no longer tread on eggshells. In the past years they’ve exchanged songs between them; that said, Anakin doesn’t know this very one, yet. The tune descends in a mournful arpeggio, and he wonders what it means. Could it be from another Mando’a song?

“What’re you thinkin’ of, Master?”

Unbridled tenderness suffuses their bond, not sure from whom, perhaps from both. The quivering turns out to be Obi-Wan’s mental shields softly lying down like overbloomed petals; impressions and sensations waft by, twining into Anakin’s psyche, and he sees, in his mind’s eye...

_ —golden curls glowing like a halo around your head; you looked upon me with a flush brighter than dawn and said, “For you, Master.” So I opened my palms and you uncurled your fingers, and in my hand I found something gleaming silver and blue, and I thought, Why...?— _

“It reminded me of your eyes,” whispers Anakin.

_ —Somehow you’d managed to find bits and crumbles of moonstones and opals, and fashioned them into this rather adorable bracelet. I even thought it was a bought thing, at first, for how intricate it was; I never knew you were as much of a bench jeweller as you were a little mechanic— _

“Although perhaps I should have,” adds Obi-Wan.

_ —billowing in the winds, your poncho and the singed ends of your robes. You had a smear of dirt on your face, over a dark battle bruise on your jaw. Your hair was wild, whipping into your eyes, and your face was streaked with rainwater or tears, and did you how much it hurt me to see you in sorrow— _

“I did,” Anakin affirms.

_ —so I took your hand, thinking perhaps you’d jerk away, but you pivoted and held me so tight I could hardly breathe. You were a live wire against me, sizzling in the rain with the grim heat of your despair; you kept saying  _ I’m sorry _ and I wished I could shoulder your burden— _

“To this day still, all I can do is wish.” Obi-Wan’s wistful sigh rolls on his skin. The images pale, dilute, until they dissipate completely, and Anakin returns to his physical senses - scents of home, voice like summer silk, hands divine on his skin.

“To shoulder my burden?” Anakin sighs in return. “I wouldn’t want you to, Master. We’re all shouldering more or less the same thing.”

Obi-Wan’s lips hover silently above his pulse. “Master, kiss me,” Anakin requests, and is met with a gentle hand running up his side. He shivers. Obi-Wan dips down, and does kiss him, but not on his lips - though perhaps it is his fault that he hasn’t specified. Not that he complains; whyever would he, when Obi-Wan is trailing whiskery kisses on his clavicles like this? Up the column of his neck Obi-Wan goes, lips pressed to his throat, some feathery and others hearty, a trace of tongue when he reaches Anakin’s jaw. Anakin smiles when kisses pepper towards his mouth, a particularly lingering one at the divot of his chin.

“Oh, have you been sleeping all this time?” says Obi-Wan against his mouth, thumb at his cheekbone. Anakin doesn’t deign him with an answer, but parts his lips and leans forward. His other senses dim, ceding place to taste; their lips pillow together, familiar sweetness on the tip of his tongue. The taste is that of greetings at dusk, of a thick Gatalenta brew mingled with a midnight cup of black, black caf. Anakin runs the tip of his tongue over the seam of Obi-Wan’s lips; the slide of their tongues are unrushed and gentle, enough for them to drink in every little hum from each other. They draw back and they lean in again, serene as rolling waves, and if there is a taste of salt it is only the phantom of tears. They are smiling in the present. If the moment isn’t to last, then they shall smile while they can.

_ It is to last _ , Anakin thinks, licking his swollen upper lip.  _ It will last; I will make sure of it. _ Obi-Wan’s forehead is against his; he dips down, gently teasing Obi-Wan’s bottom lip with both his lips, and then he tilts forth to lay his eyelashes against his Master’s cheekbone. He flutters them. Obi-Wan chuckles. “Waking up, dear one?”

Anakin pecks a corner of Obi-Wan’s mouth. “Nah,” he mumbles, even as his eyes open. Though the kiss’ sweetness lingers on his taste buds, his world is that of the light, of shapes and colors now.

The lights are dimmed, but not Obi-Wan’s eyes. They still catch light, and they glitter, twinkle, crinkle at the corners. His hair falls over his brows, softening the shadow of the creases that have begun to etch into his forehead. Anakin’s hand cups his jaw, the heel of his palm settled against the fluff of Obi-Wan’s whisker, at the upturned corner of his smile. It’s too dark to see his freckles; not too dark to see shadows of exhaustion under his eyes. Anakin doesn’t look at that; he kisses the mole on his cheek instead.

“I still think you’re an angel.” 

Obi-Wan doesn’t laugh, to his surprise. His smile broadens, only half-teasing. “I assure you, I did not come from the moons of Iego.”

“No,” Anakin says, hand sliding towards his nape so that he cradles the base of Obi-Wan’s skull. “An angel in my dreams. In my heart.” Their noses brush together, and all they feel in bed is one another.


	6. crying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin hasn’t said a word since it happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: selective mutism as trauma response; one short unspecified depiction of a panic attack.  
> Also: this is a two-parter that will be continued with tomorrow’s prompt.

The Temple has its own crypt. On a planet such as Coruscant, where layers and layers of roads and bridges and platforms crisscross like basketweaves, often when one says _underground_ , one only means the deeper, muckier pits of the Lower Levels. But the underground crypt of the Jedi truly lies beneath the Temple Precinct city block, deeper than the archaic levels, below the ground of the planet, built well into the soil. Situated directly under the sacred spire, embraced by strong currents at the heart of the Force-nexus, the crypt is the only structure of the original enclave that the Jedi of today maintain direct access to. Even then, the road is long; lift tubes giving way to steep, ancient stone steps that narrow and taper.

They - a modest procession of half a dozen Jedi - filter in through a stone passage with a black iron door. They walk on granite-and-marble paths beneath high vaulted ceilings, pass by old columns and half-crumbled relics of the far away past. There are no headstones, only a beam of warm light projected heavenward for each unmarked grave - but if you ask the eldest Jedi, they may tell you who lies where, may bring you from node to node of the ever widening net that is the history of the galaxy, as they relay to you tales after tales of their fallen family. The gravelights dye the hall in a dim, solemn amber that is meant to evoke peace rather than sorrow, reminiscence rather than mourning. The lights dim and dim as they traverse the filled section of the crypt and enter a more unlit area. There, a grave lies open in wait, gouged into the ground like the resounding emptiness in his own chest.

The casket is lowered into the pre-dug, pre-tiled grave. Beneath the shroud, the gentle features of the late Jedi can only be made out by those who knew him best. Of the mountains and valleys and dips of fabric folds, here is the curve of his nose, there is the plateau of his chest; the outline of his hands are near invisible with the way the fabric drapes, but the breadth of his shoulders still stands out. Beside the sounds of the casket’s sides skidding against the edges of the granite grave as it fits into its predetermined space, all is silent. A trembling gloved hand lays down the passed’s lightsaber by his side and withdraws limply beneath dark robes. There is no eulogy, no elegy. They look upon his covered figure, wrap up their fondest memories of him deep within their hearts. And when the grave slides shut and the light beams, the knowledge is truly cemented. Obi-Wan Kenobi is gone.

Throughout all of this, Anakin Skywalker does not shed a single tear.

Nor does he say a single word.

He cannot. The last word he spoke was Obi-Wan’s name. He said it at the very scene of the murder, on that fateful day. He had not been there the very moment his Master passed away. He should have known that the shot was deadly. He should have guessed that Obi-Wan wouldn’t crash down from the top of a building so easily. He should have _stayed there_ and tried to siphon whatever life he could borrow from the Force into him, should have at least held him to his chest while he took his last breath perhaps. Instead, he’d let Ahsoka take charge, confident that his Master would always be a constant in his life, as he attempted and failed to go after the sniper. He’d come back only to find the coldened body of his mentor, best friend, beloved, pulse silent, breaths ceased.

It’s as though the gods of the Desert have found him, cursed him, tied his tongue so that he may never speak again save for those three syllables. His lips and jaws and throat seem to have forgotten how to move and form and voice any word other than that name he has spoken - and screamed, and howled - before he went into involuntary silence. _Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan._ He still cries his throat raw in his sleep, that name, the only word he can get out of himself. _Obi-Wan._ The Council thinks his silence deliberate. Ahsoka does too. Anakin would like them to think so, anyway. Better they think he is not deigning them with answers than for them to know his voice has, by some nondescript curse, become defunct.

The funeral was too short and the people around him care too little. The universe is senseless with his Master gone so soon. He feels drained and drowned all at once, stuck in the midst of a current like a helpless fish, looking on as the world moves by. Some days are dulled by anguish and some days are red-hot with anger. Most nights he wakes up in cold sweat, his Master’s dead weight and residual warmth seemingly just there in his arms. But some nights he sleeps soundly, far too soundly, so soundly in fact that he sees himself in the glow of happier times, and Obi-Wan is there, smiling, bantering, hand on his shoulder or hand on his nape. He dreads those nights much more. He dreads resurfacing to a bleaker world, sandpaper-eyed, wishing to burrow himself back into the dream, perhaps for eternity.

His bond with Obi-Wan is silent. He can feel the structure still, and nothing is quite ravaged, no ragged edges nor crumbling foundations. It’s intact, but as cold and grey and crushingly lonely as an abandoned bridge. Nothing shines anymore, not even the stars that once bore witness to whispered words late into their nights.

The Chancellor still speaks to him on the regular, even though Anakin cannot answer. Each time the words come into one ear and out the other, until a particular piece of information snags. _Hardeen is on Nal Hutta._

Anakin leaves the Temple that night, alone. His apprentice deserves better than a mute Master with eyes blackened by the prospect of vengeance.

He finds them, the bounty hunters. One is Cad Bane, and the other is his target. He knows the face of Rako Hardeen from the files; it kindles in him such rage that he feels the hum of his kyber and the buzz of his blade more keenly than the physicality of his own body. He’s incandescent, both weightless in his movements and leaden in his heart. He raises his lightsaber and swings, a maddened cry tearing out of his throat in place of the coherent words that he can no longer form. _This one is for Obi-Wan._

He’s countered, he’s tossed back. He’s shot at and thrown to the ground and Hardeen’s fist collides with his face, once, twice, half a dozen times. His consciousness doesn’t leave him; it has never been there in the first place. His Unconscious has taken reign, full of darkness as he wrestles the assassin back, elbows jabbing and knees jerking and fingers gouging, raising dust on a rocky, desolate field. Hardeen locks him in an unbelievably strong chokehold, their body tangled up together as though in a twisted simulacrum of a lover’s embrace. Anakin growls and kicks wildly, teeth bared, golden fingers threatening to puncture the synthleather of his glove as he claws his way out.

“Anakin,” rasps Hardeen just beside his ear, in a hushed tone that could only be described as… gentle? “Don’t— follow— me.”

His name, _Anakin_ , enunciated in a manner so familiar that his heart stops. Three words, each pressed down with a weight unto itself, arranged into a cadence of three low notes played in distinct _détaché_ . Don’t follow _who_? His mind goes frantically blank for a moment, paralyzed by the leap to a too-hopeful conclusion. For a fraction of a second, Obi-Wan’s light glows in him again, just a flicker on the far end of that lonely grey bridge. And when his heartbeat resumes, it surges into overdrive with realization, thrumming madly till his body gives out. His eyes roll back into his skull.

By the time Anakin comes to, the assassins are gone.

On Naboo, he does not speak. During the Festival of Light, he does not speak. They apprehend the criminals and save the Chancellor’s life, he does not speak. When Obi-Wan, in the skin of Rako Hardeen, comes up to him, Anakin does not speak.

He does not find it in him to respond; he cannot. Anakin looks the man in the eye once, sullen. Rako Hardeen’s terrible beady eyes now look at him with the clear guilt and tender concern of Obi-Wan. Their bond lights up again, tentatively, but he closes his gates to it. It doesn’t feel like Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan returns to their quarters that night, himself again. Anakin gets a glimpse of his clean shaven jaws and smooth scalp. He recoils into his bedroom and slides down against a closed door, doubled over like he’s been punched in the guts. His eyes are dry and stinging, his throat too tight. Metal fingers leave dents on his own cheeks as he clasps his mechanical hand to his face, heedless of the still fresh bruises on his jaws. Seeing Obi-Wan as _Obi-Wan_ and not in the shape of Rako Hardeen… He can hardly breathe. He curls up at the foot of his door, gasping for air, trembling to the core. His heart batters against his rib cage like a mad hummingbird. He falls asleep clutching his own knees.

And he stays there.

For the next two, three, four days, Anakin confines himself to his room. He uses the fresher when he knows Obi-Wan has left their quarters. He answers no comm call and plays no transmission. He has enough unfixed droids and unassembled parts in his room to busy his hands and empty his mind. Days and nights blur with the blinds and curtains tightly shut; he attaches wires and plugs cables and secures circuit boards and falls asleep for scant few hours at a time when his body forces him to shut down. His mind is blissfully thought-free; or at least, he can blissfully pretends that it is.

On the fifth night, there’s a knock at his door.

It startles Anakin more than it should. He scrambles onto his feet with a magnetized screwdriver still dangling from his mechno-arm.

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan’s voice, on the other side.

Anakin swallows hard. Hair stands on the back of his head. He can’t answer.

“Anakin, I know you are angry at me,” his Master continues. “As you should be.” There’s not a trace of condescension, concession or compromise in his voice. Just plain, pure pain, even when muffled through the door and the wall. “I have made questionable decisions that, at the time, I believed was right. I no longer do.”

A nervous pause. Anakin’s throat tightens anew. He drops the screwdriver into his toolbox; it makes a resounding _clang_.

“I would like to apologize face to face, Anakin, if you would let me.”

Silence, save for bare feet padding on the floor.

“And even if you would not… It worries me how distraught you are.” There’s a watery edge to Obi-Wan’s voice now. “Please, Anakin. Please come out—”

The door slides open. Obi-Wan is there, a growing-out fuzz of hair over his scalp and new stubble on his face. His eyes are blue and gentle. Anakin stares at him for a beat.

And throws his arms around him.

He presses his face to the crook of Obi-Wan's neck, reality still not hitting because he's scared, he doesn't want to let it, he doesn't want to acknowledge it only for it to turn out to be just a cruel dream. But he can't resist it either, crushing his Master's form into his arms, fingers digging down in desperation. For the first time in days, weeks, months, his eyes properly water, tears oozing out in heavy, ugly globs, streaking his face in the most undignified manner. His mouth falls open; and the sobs that come out of his mouth are so hoarse they're almost silent, just sharp breaths followed by pathetic, wheezing creaks of the throat, like an infant that doesn't have enough air to wail.

“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan breathes. Anakin goes rigid for a moment, before he curls himself tighter and harder around his Master, body wracked by violent shivers.

"Saw you... casket..." His voice croaks and falters with disuse, but the curse is broken. He gasps, and hiccups, and dimly feels a hand rubbing his hunched back. "Why— would you— do that— to me...?"

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan whispers, into his hair, into his ear, over and over again, susurruses of _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ that surround him and sink under his skin, and Anakin’s knees give out. His weight crumbles atop Obi-Wan, who steadies him at once, arms sturdy about his middle, guiding him back and back until Anakin finds himself sitting on his bed - bed that he hasn’t slept on in weeks. He slumps. Obi-Wan’s hands hold his face tenderly, wipes the tears that keep tracking down, kisses his forehead, his nose, his salty, wet cheekbones.

“Let it out,” he says, and Anakin takes in a sharp, terrible sob, grabs him and buries his face to Obi-Wan’s chest. He cries until his teeth buzz and his extremities numb from exhaustion, until Obi-Wan once again guides him, this time back onto the bed, and Anakin lies in his arms with kisses in his hair.

“Stay with me,” Anakin chokes out, hands bunched in his robes. “Obi-Wan, stay with me, stay—”

“Of course, Anakin,” Obi-Wan soothes, arms folding protectively over his back. “Sleep now, please. You have me, dear one.”

Anakin wants to protest. Now that he can speak again, he has _so_ much to say, angry words, broken words. But Obi-Wan begins to hum a lullaby, that he feels in his chest, in his tired, tired heart. So he succumbs to the soft, clear-water warmth that is Obi-Wan’s presence wrapping around him once more. He passes out with a runt droplet of tear straying from the corner of his eye, tracking down his old scar.

That night, the stars shine again.

—


	7. afraid to sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The easiest way to deal with dreams is to not have them at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: more depiction of something like a panic attack and accidental self-harm; self-inflicted sleep deprivation.
> 
> This is the second and last part of the Deception arc fixit from yesterday.

Anakin screams.

His throat is parched, scratched so raw that the pain startles him awake. This is not the first time. “Obi-Wan…” It’s not even the tenth time. “ _ Obi-Wan! _ ” His worst fears had come true, right before his eyes; all of the visions of his Master leaving this realm, leaving him behind, had manifested in reality in the most cruel manners possible - for just minutes ago they’d been laughing, unaware. He was a fool. He was supposed to have learned his lesson after his mother! If only he’d been more vigilant; if only he’d taken the other building-top route. He’s fallen to his knees. Obi-Wan was in his arms, still warm, but silenced, pulseless, unmoving—

Obi-Wan is in his arms.

“My heart,” whispers the familiar voice. “You’re all right.” Anakin’s eyes shoot open as a gentle hand cards through his hair. Warmth envelopes him, from the arms around him to the signature that twines with his own, and he...

He pushes, hard, scrambling backwards and away, crying out in frustration as the blanket tangles into his limbs. He shoves and kicks against the figure in bed until he himself rolls off the edge of the bed, back hitting the floor in a dull thud. In an instant the night lamps are on and there’s Obi-Wan, alive, going after him, crouching on the floors to speak to him.

So he’s not awake, then.

“No!” Anakin scrabbles back, one foot still twisted in the blanket. He yanks it off, breaths shaking, and looks away, anywhere but Obi-Wan. Anywhere but this alive-and-well Obi-Wan. Now this, this has never happened before. Never has a dream that replays the event of that day been followed up by the mirage of Obi-Wan still alive. It’s always one or the other. This feels too real, and is too cruel, and Anakin desperately wants to wake up. 

“Anakin—” Obi-Wan reaches out.

Anakin swats his hand away, heels skidding on the ground as he backs and backs until he’s cornered against the wall. He’s on his feet in a second, dashing off towards the fresher.  _ Not again not again not again. _ He  _ hates _ these dreams, he hates them. Why does the Force and his own mind conspire together to torture him like this, tease him with such a palpable illusion - Obi-Wan, his body so solid and warm and his voice so musically lifelike, and even his Force presence fans out warmly against Anakin’s signature as if he’s really, really there.

He locks the fresher door. Obi-Wan’s voice is muffled right outside it,  _ “Anakin” _ and  _ “Please” _ and the likes, a cruelly persistent fragment of his imagination. Anakin backs away along the wall and tremblingly collides against a faraway corner. His gilded fingers dig into his left forearm. The voice outside the fresher has quieted, at least.  _ Wake up _ , Anakin thinks, clawing down harder on his arm, teeth gritting, eyes squeezed shut.  _ Let me wake up! _ It’ll hurt enough for him to wake up any moment now. Any moment now... 

“Anakin— Oh Force, you’re bleeding.”

The other fresher door - on the side that’s adjacent to Obi-Wan’s room - slides shut. Obi-Wan’s voice rings aghast right above him. Anakin lets out a cry, tears springing to his eyes in hurt and despair. “Leave me alone—”

Obi-Wan crouches down, fingers slowly curling around his bare elbow. “You’re hurting yourself, I cannot—”

“It doesn’t matter! This is a dream, and I’m—”A sharp sob cuts through his words. The salt of tears tastes somewhat like blood on his lips. Come to think of it, he has never shed tears, not even during the worst dreams. “Please, don’t… make me believe this is real, I can’t, I can’t take it…”

Obi-Wan silences, drawing closer, and Anakin, shivering in broken, held back sobs, is too tired to wrench away this time. Warm droplets of a consistency far thicker than tears roll ticklishly from the finger-shaped gouges on his left arm. It stings, but nowhere near as much as the throbbing in his chest. Obi-Wan cradles it, familiar calluses brushing gently up his unhurt skin. Anakin gives up; he sags against the two walls, obstinately glaring at the ground.

“Please, look at me,” his Master pleads, bringing his hand up. Anakin tenses, as his palm is pressed to… skin. A bare jaw, with only the slightest tickle of growing fuzz, rather than the usual thick fluff of Obi-Wan neatly trimmed beard. “Please, Anakin. Just look at me.”

Hesitantly, Anakin lifts his gaze. Obi-Wan’s face is distinctly bare, unframed by auburn locks. A peculiar look that Anakin has never seen, until… yesterday. Because Obi-Wan has spent the past few months wearing the face of another. The Rako Hardeen operation. The assassination attempt on the Chancellor. Naboo, Festival of Light, duels.  _ Anakin, don’t follow me. _ Blood, tears, apologies.

“Master…” Anakin whispers hoarsely. “You…”

“I’m here. You’re awake, Anakin.” Obi-Wan cups his tear-marked face. Solid warmth seeps under his skin; Anakin can’t refuse this. “Would you let me patch up your injuries?”

He nods, his hand lolling limp over Obi-Wan’s gentle grip.

By the time his left arm is wrapped in clean white linen, the sky has turned a coral pink. Obi-Wan - shaved, both hair and beard, freshly freed of his disguise - sits beside him on the bed, a hand on his back as Anakin stares down at his own palm.

“It’s not always like this.” He barks out a dry, clipped laugh. His face burns with the embarrassment of it all, although parts of him still doubt this very reality in the moment. “Usually I just… woke up, and came to my senses.”

Obi-Wan’s hand smooths along his spine like he’s stroking down raised hackles. “I don’t blame you either way.”

Anakin breathes out in a shudder. He glances back, catching Obi-Wan’s eyes and the glimmer of new daylight in it; how he wants to pull him close and breathe in his scent and bask in his warmth, and stay there and listen to his living heartbeat.

He doesn’t. He places a hand on Obi-Wan’s arm to pry him away. Shakily Anakin rises to his feet.

“I’m going to the training grounds,” he mutters.  _ Alone _ , it goes unsaid.

Three hours later, he returns, resolute.

“Master,” Anakin greets, voice as cheery as he can make it. He thought he would have to strain himself for a smile, but when Obi-Wan glances up from behind the steam of his teacup, the mid-morning sun glowing softly on his thin layer of downy hair, a smile curves across Anakin’s lips genuinely, almost unbidden. He strolls in, taking the seat across from Obi-Wan - who smiles back at him abashedly but so wholeheartedly that Anakin wants to change seats and fold him in his arms.

Obi-Wan reaches across the small tea table. He looks hesitant, so Anakin leans forward slightly with a hopeful little head tilt. He grins when Obi-Wan brushes a sweat-damp lock from his forehead. Obi-Wan sighs, looking visibly relaxed. “How many poor training droids did you demolish this time?”

“I didn’t count.” Anakin taps his fingers on the table. He leans into Obi-Wan’s hand and his Master lets him. “Have you had breakfast?”

“Have you?”

Anakin raises a brow, in an  _ Oh, I get it _ fashion. “Let’s make it a brunch.”

“You say that, and then you’ll be having lunch as well.”

“You know me like no other, Master.”

Obi-Wan laughs. “At least go shower first.”

Anakin sighs, more relieved than joyful, smiling though he is. Carefully he wraps the hurt in his heart into a bundle and buries it. It’s easier to pretend nothing happened.

The day goes by uneventfully; they brunch (and, as Obi-Wan predicted, also lunch later on) together; they parse through their archived mission reports per a brief request from the Council; they separate in the evening, Obi-Wan to the Council, Anakin to teach circuitry to a group of younglings. Even then Obi-Wan keeps his side of their bond open, dappling light and colors on the bridge that’s no longer desolate; and Anakin returns in kind, sending him impressions of the children laughing as he mimes to them the consequences of attaching this wrong wire with that.

Dinner is a simple affair. “I’ve missed your cooking,” says Obi-Wan, tying Anakin’s apron. Anakin leans back, half looking over his shoulder, and gets a ready peck on the cheek. Afterwards they retire to the coziest corner in the living room of the quarters, Anakin on the floor tinkering with an augmented megaphone, Obi-Wan on the couch with a datapad. As they always do.

“You should get some rest,” Obi-Wan suggests, at one point.

Anakin smooths out his involuntary wince. “I don’t feel like it,” he says, but then thinks better of it and quickly adds, “unless you come with me, Master.”

If Obi-Wan questions it, he doesn’t voice it at all. “I was planning to do just that.” 

They settle in bed, in Obi-Wan’s bedroom this time. The sheets smell like him, Anakin thinks. The neat rows of datacards and datapads on the shelves, the single holo - depicting the Jedi Temple itself seen from above - neatly framed on the wall, they all feel like him. It’s strange how he has been in here more times than he can count, and yet he’s seeing everything anew.

“Is something the matter, Anakin?”

He squeezes Obi-Wan’s hand. “No,” he says, unsmiling. And he continues to stare at the ceiling, the outlines of the closet door, the comforting shadows, until light dawns in the room. Obi-Wan stirs, smiling groggily when Anakin presses a kiss to his forehead.

Their days pass by like that. No mission has been assigned to them yet, and Anakin doesn’t care to ask why. He smiles and laughs and banters in the day, as joyous as he can, as jovial as he used to be. He lies awake every night by Obi-Wan’s side, even as his tired eyes begin to blur sometimes during the day, his head turning from exhaustion. But he persists; he props himself up with whatever the Force allows him to utilize. There’s a primal fear gnawing at the back of his mind, that he’s still straddling a line between two realms, one of which is that of dreams, and he doesn’t know which one it is. There are moments when he nearly blacks out in the cafeteria; yet other instances where he’d accidentally pinch his own fingers with the plier. Still he persists.

The easiest way to deal with dreams is to not have them at all. And if all of this is a dream, then he would rather not risk waking up.

But it can’t last.

A week later, Anakin comes back from his third trip to the fresher in the night, face still dripping with cold water, only to find Obi-Wan sitting cross-legged in bed. He has that  _ Padawan-you-are-in-trouble _ sort of look, even though Anakin hasn’t been his Padawan for quite some time now.

“You have been awake,” his Master says, with surprisingly little accusation there.

“Well, yes,” Anakin admits, shrugging, flopping down next to him in bed. His attempt to play it off cool fails terribly when he swallows in a loud  _ gulp _ . “I haven’t been feeling tired.”

“For a week.”

“For a week,” Anakin echoes, stubborn.

“Anakin, you need to sleep.” Obi-Wan scoots closer. Anakin flinches away, so blatantly obvious that he immediately sees the implication of it reflected in Obi-Wan’s eyes. Confusion, realization, and then—guilt. “Is this because of your nightmares?”

Their fragilely held together normalcy begins to shake apart. Memories of a week ago - screaming, thrashing, the self-inflicted gouges on his arm - resurge. Anakin bites down his lip. “Not really.” Which is the truth.

Obi-Wan levels him with a long look. Anakin sees the exact moment his face pales, his eyes widen. “Anakin, are you still thinking you aren’t…  _ awake _ ?”

When Anakin doesn’t answer, the sheets rustle and the bed dips. He doesn’t withdraw this time when Obi-Wan draws near, whispering his name so dear. “You know you cannot go on like this. This is real, I am alive, and I need you to trust—” Obi-Wan pauses mid-sentence. It’s such a habitual phrase that even Anakin did not bat an eye until he catches the look of immense shame on Obi-Wan’s face. Heavy guilt and apologies wash up onto the shores of his mind, timidly effervescing at the foot of his locked gates.

“You can’t trust me,” Obi-Wan infers out loud, and Anakin lets silence answer in the affirmative for him. Obi-Wan’s voice is so very soft, as pained as it is. “I’m… I’m sorry. Though I know no apology will be enough, I must repeat that I’m truly sorry, until you believe that I am.”

The air shifts. The spell of the past days breaks. Blissful, willful ignorance shatters, forcing them both to face the truth. A long, stifling silence stretches between them. It’s never felt like this; they are not supposed to be like this. They don’t run out of words, or lingering touch and gentle gestures, when they are with each other. They are a team, they are  _ the _ team. How has it come to this?

“...You lied to me.” And not just some inconsequential lie, but an entire scheme that has left Anakin in shambles, for the sake of a mission. This is the Jedi way - the collective above the individual, the greater good above the particular interests - but not the way of their entwined path.

“I didn’t want... to believe, that, that you lied to me.” Anakin continues. Maybe, deep down, that was why he wrapped himself in feigned ignorance and insisted on sleepwalking in broad daylight. Because both the pain of grief - of a world without Obi-Wan - and the pain of betrayal - of a world where Obi-Wan faked his demise for a show, heedless of him - are unbearable. “How could I ever trust you again?”

“I don’t know, Anakin.” Obi-Wan says artlessly, mournfully, his head hanging. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. How would I ever earn your trust again?” There’s true pain etched into Obi-Wan’s countenance in the form of deep creases on his foreheads, between his eyes, at the corners of his mouth. His eyes are wide and wetly shining with genuine remorse.

Anakin takes in a shaky breath. 

“You didn’t trust me.” That’s what hurts the most. The lie itself is egregious enough, to be sure; yet it was the cause of the lie that sunk the claws of doubts deep, deep within him. The Council not trusting him is one thing, but to think that  _ Obi-Wan _ didn’t trust him… or  _ doesn’t _ trust him still, even. He would trust his Master with his life, would be ready to lay prone with the tip of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber over his red beating heart if Obi-Wan would only so much as tell him it is for the sake of something they’re both fighting for. He thought that trust was mutual; was confident that they knew each other better than this. In the end, the person he trusted the most in this entire galaxy had used his grief to fodder a spectacle.

Maybe he should have stayed silent forever. Wouldn’t that be what the Council wants? He’d still be unpredictable, dangerous, as Master Yoda so said, but at least his mouth would be keeping itself shut. Maybe that was what the gods of the Desert had wanted. Maybe the Force itself willed it. Anakin Skywalker, the Silent One.

Anakin lifts his gaze, locks their eyes together. “I can’t trust you if you don’t trust me, Master.”

“I do,” Obi-Wan answers at once, both reflexive and in earnest. “I did then, and I do now.”

“Then why did you lie to me?”

A beat of silence.

“I trusted you to wait.” The words come out of Obi-Wan’s mouth quietly, haltingly, likely painful for him to speak. “I trusted… that my absence would not affect you so much. I believed you would be consolable until my return.” He sighs. “Such was my trust for you.”

“Do you not know—“ Anakin’s voice cracks “—how important you are to me?”

Obi-Wan’s arms open, as if by instincts. In an instant Anakin has his arms around his neck, curled up in his lap, his nose in his hair. Obi-Wan ushers him even closer, winding his arms around him. They both shudder in shared relief.

“That was my mistake, dear one,” Obi-Wan whispers just below his ear. “In disregarding myself, I was blinded to your regard for me. And I regret it every day.”

Anakin acknowledges with a graceless sniffle and a nod that turns out more like nuzzling. He presses his cheek to the soft fuzz on Obi-Wan’s scalp, humming to a purr as Obi-Wan’s fingers knead into his nape. He shifts to rest down on Obi-Wan, damnably melting under the hand stroking his hair, rubbing his back, squeezing his shoulder. Their breathing rises and falls in counterpoint. Obi-Wan presses a kiss to his pulse. Anakin’s eyes fall shut. This time, silence drapes on them as light as a silken shawl, gentle and knowing. After all that has transpired, his Master still feels like home. There’s no changing that.

“I won’t ask for forgiveness,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “But if you would allow me to prove myself worthy of your trust again…” he pauses “...then I promise you, Anakin, I will not fail you.”

Anakin breathes out, hearing every word with his heart. “Obi-Wan…” Sleep has crawled all the way to his crown, and he’s teetering on cottony cliffs, about to sink into the vast velvet beneath shining stars. But before sleep claims him, he says what he must. “I forgive you.”


	8. blanket fort + flashbacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin learned an aspect of Stewjoni culture when he was much younger. He uses it when he sees fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fills 2 prompts for day 8+9.  
> Big thanks to my friend Duskscribe who came up with the Stewjoni nests.

Anakin paces back and forth in the bridge, hands balled into fists at his sides. His captain is belting out orders left and right, while the clones maneuver the side wings, the guns, and the shields. He’s tempted to just snatch a pilot seat; the feeling of control through giving orders doesn’t feel half as reassuring as when he’s truly holding the steerer and staring through the viewport. He’d rather be in the thick of battle right now, than standing here safe in the command room, detached from all that is at stake.

“Any message from him?” He asks.

“No, sir,” Rex answers.

Anakin scowls, eyes returning to the pale blue light. “And no detected position either? The tracking program has been up and running since yesterday, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, but there’s no results so far. Tech team said General Kenobi might be in an area where signals are heavily blocked, or that his commlink has been taken away and deactivated.”

 _So either imprisoned or incapacitated._ Anakin grits his teeth, grim prospects flitting through his mind. _Great._ He’s sure Obi-Wan could get himself out of a pinch at any time, but by Force, this isn’t looking good. “It’s not destroyed, though, is it?” Destroyed commlinks usually have their ‘death signal’, so to speak. Not a fun name.

“As far as we know, no.” Rex’s hesitation in his reply isn’t very encouraging.

“Right.” Anakin straightens up. “Then we’ll just have to wait until we’re there to see.”

Getting there is a long, rocky way. Kách has been formally aligned with the Neutral Systems for a decade. Republic influence means little here, and the protectionist Káchese government is notoriously skeptical about any outside influence at all. Even arranging diplomatic talks is difficult, as far as he’s heard. The only semblance of legitimate reason they have, officially, is a ring of Separatist droid stations currently stationed within the system, very close to the planet itself, and that’s shaky at best. But the pretext being shaky doesn’t mean that the Separatist automated defense is any less hostile to them - so here they are. Shooting Confederacy marked ships and narrowly avoiding collision while a Neutral command center below _repeatedly_ asks them for ‘authentication’.

“For the _kriffing_ last time—” Anakin finally strides forward, slapping a button on the control board and effectively muting the disembodied, unfeeling voice from the monitor. Outside, one of his troopers has landed a shot on another droid-piloted fighter. “Alright, troopers. We’re entering the atmosphere.”

“General Skywalker,” Rex said, and that was all he said, staring at him like he knew Anakin should understand without him having to voice the question _Are you sure?_. Anakin held his gaze like a challenge, eyes grim.

_Obi-Wan is down there. Hells if I’m not sure._

He nods at Rex. “Go on with it.”

—

“And you will stay here until your Master’s return, Padawan Skywalker,” Master Antana said. She sounded sterner than she ever did. “No ‘but’s,” she added.

Anakin kept his gaze down, scratching sullenly at the light bacta patch on his cheek. Master Antana set a hand on his shoulder like a punctuation mark, and turned around. The door slid shut behind her back. Anakin groaned, kicking off his boots and flopping down onto the long couch. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, arms crossed. But then he felt a little guilty, so he got up, picked up his footwear, and arranged them by the door.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” he said aloud before he caught himself. He still had that habit from home, of talking to himself, because really he used to be talking to C-3PO; as weird as it sounds, sometimes Anakin still sort of forgot that he wasn’t really home anymore.

He went back to lay down on the couch again and winced when he accidentally laid on his bruised shoulder. He rolled his stumpy braid between his fingers, frowning. This was so bad. It would be another few hours until Obi-Wan got back from his solo mission. Anakin would have to spend the afternoon alone with nothing but his _homework_ for company, while Talent Day went on out there, the Padawans racing and cheering and all that. He was supposed to be out there with them. He would have totally won the trophy - if not for the race, then for the crafting competition. At least one! But his hopes had been dashed, all because of Diila, that good for nothing _cheater_ who’d used the Force to loosen the wires in Anakin’s carefully put together circuit board, who’d even tripped him when he came back—

It really wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought, blinking back angry tears. He was too old to be crying over this sort of thing. He ground his teeth together and rolled onto his side. Whatever. He’d just go to sleep for now.

Anakin woke up to the smell of something savory and warm. He rolled over and realized he had a light cramp in one leg, as well as - he glanced down - a quilt, draped over him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. There was a nice glow around him, familiar and balmy. It was Obi-Wan, for sure. That was something he’d gotten used to really quickly, way quicker than he did the rest of the Temple. And he liked it, usually, but today… Well, he was going to have to tell Obi-Wan what he had done today, if the other Masters hadn’t told him yet.

He sat on the couch, chewing his bottom lip. His Master already knew he was here, so if he went back to hide in his room then sooner or later Obi-Wan would just come to ask him about what happened. That and he was kind of hungry, and whatever Obi-Wan was making (or he was probably heating up something he bought; he wasn’t very good at cooking for other people, and he said as much) in there smelled pretty good.

“Good evening, Anakin.” Oh, too late to decide. Obi-Wan was here, standing tall in front of him. At least he didn’t look like he was angry or anything. “You must be hungry?”

“Um,” said Anakin.

“Why don’t you set the table while I get the stew done?”

“Okay… I mean, yes, Master.”

—

Neither of the tech team’s theories on Obi-Wan’s untraceability is correct. Combined, though, they are. The commlink isn’t deactivated, and Obi-Wan isn’t being kept in an area with blocked signals; it is, in fact, his still-active commlink that is found in such a warehouse. Just his commlink, though. And he’s still nowhere to be found.

Without formal acceptation and a more or less rogue entry in the atmosphere, Anakin and his troopers are not even legally allowed to be on Kách, let alone inquire the government as to the whereabouts of the Negotiator. (They’re lucky enough that Káchese security forces is rather slow in matters of detection.) Obi-Wan arrived there a month ago, ostensibly to renew diplomatic ties between the Republic and the system in question, but covertly to investigate the possibility of Separatist sympathy that the system is hiding from both the Republic and the Neutral Council. Anakin wasn’t on Coruscant when his reports ceased. Anakin hasn’t even been back to Coruscant; nor did he see the Council. When Obi-Wan’s light fogged over on the other side of their bond and his shields drew up as though addled, Anakin had flown straight from his recently won battles to Kách. He can always tell the Council later. After he’s found his Master.

As for them, the impromptu rescue team, they’ve been here for five days. Aside from Obi-Wan’s retrieved commlink, they don’t really have other clues aside from the - very cooperative - warehouse owner’s answers to Anakin’s questions.

“It was someone in beskar armor who sold us this,” they say in a monotone voice. “His face is hidden.”

That is nowhere near the concise clue they need; at the same time, it has the effect of conjuring yet more devastating scenarios in Anakin’s mind. “Our best bet is to trace after the links in the chain,” he says, closing his fingers around the commlink. If it takes months to do that, so be it.

They are halfway scouring the underbelly of the Káchese economy when Anakin feels it. On the other side of their bond, like a frozen river thawing, Obi-Wan’s warmth emerges. Multicolored bursts of light crackle across, courtesy of Anakin’s own immense relief; he swims through the still thawing river with a wreath of questions. None of his verbal projections survived the stream, even though he and Obi-Wan are on the same system. Obi-Wan spreads calm and reassurance into his mind; he seems sanguine, at least.

Relying purely on the Force to track down a person is a tricky business. It seems ages before Anakin manages to gauge his general location on the planet.

“General Kenobi isn’t in the middle of the sea, is he?” He overhears one of the shinies jokingly ask. 

_I sure hope not,_ Anakin thinks.

—

His Master didn’t mind that Anakin talked while eating, provided that he swallowed his food before he did. So they always did talk during meals. And Anakin was a little worried that Obi-Wan would ask about Talent Day.

But Obi-Wan didn’t. Obi-Wan just asked him how his classes had been for the past two weeks that he had been away. Anakin told him about his group trip to a little planetoid of the Coruscant system, where they got to meditate in low gravity. He didn’t like the meditation, but he liked the floating feeling. Then he got curious and asked Obi-Wan about his own solo mission, so Obi-Wan told him about this Outer Rim planet called Kách, with fast green valleys and open lakes; and they were so happy once, but now they were divided into factions, and then there was this area full of berry fields and bantha barns that the groups all wanted to keep to themselves, and so and so.

His tale continued on as they finished eating, took their plates and bowls to the sink.

“...to bring their offering over, but there were at least five groups. They did not trust each other— Anakin, be careful.” Obi-Wan sighed, but smiled, leaning over to tip up the plate that was slowly slipping out of Anakin’s hand and the washing rag.

“They did not trust each other, and?” Anakin glanced down as he rinsed the plate. “And you needed to show them how to get along, right, Master?”

Obi-Wan ushered him to the fresher afterwards while he made the bed. By then, Anakin had almost forgotten all about what happened earlier that day. He padded out of the shower and into Obi-Wan’s room as always, yawning. “Master, I forgot my tunic, can you get it for me please?”

“It’s on the bed, Anakin.” Obi-Wan turned back from his desk. His Master looked at him for a moment, and then Anakin remembered, eyes snapping down at the big, dark bruises on his shoulders. His stomach sunk. He really had to explain it now - why he’d been back in their quarters early instead of joining the others during the rest of Talent Day. 

But Obi-Wan didn’t ask about it. 

“Padawan,” he said gently. Anakin put on the tunic and hesitantly came over. “Would you mind helping me with something? I need you to put the rugs together.”

“What for, Master?”

“We are going to build something for ourselves. Would you like that?”

Anakin lit up at _build_. He nodded, immediately pulling the rugs to the foot of the bed, while Obi-Wan got spare blankets from the closet. When his Master got to laying out the pillows and cushions on the floor all about the rugs, Anakin joined in, enthusiastically piling them up. Together they shrugged out the blankets and bundled them around and inside of the pillow wall, until they had a nice, soft seat surrounded by cushions.

Obi-Wan settled in; Anakin curled up next to him.

“So what is this, Master?”

“This is what the people of Stewjon call a nest,” Obi-Wan said, stroking his hair. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah.” Anakin nodded, sinking back into the plush. “That’s your home world, isn’t it? What is the nest for? How did you know about all this?”

“One question at a time, Padawan.” Despite saying so, Obi-Wan smiled. “Yes, that is my origin planet; I don’t truly know all that much about the culture, mind, but I have learned a thing or two after this one extended mission when I was younger. As for the nest, well,” he paused, humming, “it is for just that - comfort. The Stewjoni usually share a nest with their parents, or siblings, or very, very close friends.”

“So, like us!”

Obi-Wan paused for a moment, blinking. His hand stopped in Anakin’s hair, and Anakin looked up, puzzled by the silence. Then Obi-Wan simply nodded, clearing his voice, smiling broadly. “Right.” His hand resumed, carding through Anakin’s hair anew. “Sometimes the Stewjoni would tell each other stories and fall asleep in their nest, and it was considered a sign of good luck and healing.”

Anakin nodded in understanding, lips puckered as he thought about those words. That was interesting. Obi-Wan had never told him about his home world before. Anakin was curious about it as he was about any other place in the galaxy. “Why is it good luck?”

“Falling asleep while confiding in each other is akin to a promise. The nest is, after all, a place where our secrets are safe with each other,” Obi-Wan continued on, gently. “So you may tell me anything here, young one. Perhaps starting with this?” His Master rested his palm against the side of Anakin’s face that was plastered with the bacta patch.

 _Oh._ Anakin chewed the inside of his cheeks, thinking for a moment. All that was very nice, and if Obi-Wan had made him a nest for all this, then he probably wasn’t going to get mad at him. “It… It was Diila,” he began, fidgeting with the hem of his tunic. “He ruined my group’s circuit board during the crafting competition. I was— I mean, we were going to win. So, um, the Padawans in my team said it was my fault. I told them it was Diila, but they didn’t believe me, so I went to him, and he laughed at me and said I had, I had no proof, and I was going to lose the race too, and he _tripped_ me!”

Obi-Wan was still listening quietly, a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything even as Anakin came to a huffing stop, as if he was still waiting for more of the story. Anakin frowned up at him, and then relented. “And I, um, I fought him,” he said, lowering his eyes. “Master Antana found us. She sent us back.”

“I see,” said Obi-Wan. He set a hand atop Anakin’s crown - and it felt so different from Master Antana, or Master Windu, or anyone else at all. His Master’s hand was always light. “Padawan, a cheater is only going to bring misfortune upon themselves, eventually. It doesn’t fall on you to punish them. At the very least, you could have told the Masters about Padawan Diila’s actions.”

“Well, I told you, I didn’t have proof,” Anakin grumbled, testy. “Besides! Besides, I—I could’ve won. I wanted to win. I mean, I wanted _us_ to win, but, uh, I wanted…”

“The spirit of Talent Day is not to win competitions, young one. It is about teamwork, and honing our skills. I’m sure you could have won fair and square, but even if you did not—”

“I, I wanted to get the medal for you,” Anakin blurted, looking down. “I wanted to, to show you… that I’m a good Padawan.” His face was brightly hot, and he picked at his fingers mindlessly, even as it stung.

Slowly, Obi-Wan’s hand cradled his own, covered them, holding his right hand back from further bloodying his raw left thumb. He held both of Anakin’s hands in his - his hands are so much larger and more calloused, but the warmth is really about the same. “Anakin.” Anakin looked up. “You are a good Padawan. I already know that.”

—

 _Someone in beskar armor_ that the warehouse owner spoke of turns out to be Obi-Wan himself.

“Anakin, you don’t have to—” Obi-Wan pauses with a low hiss of breath, when the alcohol-drenched cotton dabs on the edge of his injury; he has a rather long gash on his temple “—do this.”

Anakin only squints at him. They’re now back on his ship, Obi-Wan safe except for a smattering of burns and scratches that litter his body, despite the armor. The armor isn’t actually beskar, just made in the same shape and painted in the same manner; the warehouse owner wasn’t savvy in weapons, and “I did adopt a Mando’a accent to complete the part,” admitted Obi-Wan earlier. Apparently he was throwing some hostile party off his scent.

“Next you’re going to tell me I didn’t have to come rescue you, Master,” he says, none too pleased, tearing out a new piece of cotton.

“Indeed I was going to tell you that.” Obi-Wan sighs. Anakin ignores the quip, until his Master’s hand - ungloved, calloused, warm - brush over the bump of his wrist, circles around it, strokes up to cover the back of Anakins’ hand. “Still. Thank you, Anakin.”

Obi-Wan is looking at him through heavy lashes. His hair is anything but perfectly combed back right now; they stray messily over his forehead, matted at places where the blood crusts. He smells of sweat and smoke and gunpowder. Anakin tapes the gauge on the side of his face and smooths it down, knuckles brushing along his cheekbone, down to the softness of his beard, sloping along his jaw.

“Something’s bothering you, Master.” It’s rather out of nowhere, but he’s felt it since they got back. “Something about the mission?”

“I could say the same to you, Anakin.” The corner of his mouth tugs up and Anakin feels it under his very fingers. He struggles not to smile, but he doesn’t maintain his serious look for so long.

“Master, your deflecting techniques won’t work on me.”

“Need I remind you that this is a confidential mission, then?”

“Not so when I’ve personally plucked you out of the basement of an opium den. What is it - why did the government retract protection for…” Anakin pauses. In the sterile, cold lights of the ship’s medbay, the shadows beneath Obi-Wan’s eyes seem tenfold as dark. He looks tired to the bone. “Well, fine. You know what, you should sleep, Obi-Wan.”

“This isn’t news, is it?” Obi-Wan’s eyes crinkle. The shadows of his eyes seem lighter now, when Anakin leans in to kiss them.

It’s well past nighttime in the capital of Coruscant when they park in the hangar of the Temple. They return to their quarters. While Obi-Wan takes his time in the fresher, Anakin sets the rugs together into a sizeable patch on the floor, before hauling armfuls of blankets and pillows from his own room over to his Master’s. These combined with the spares in the closet make for a sumptuous bank of high-piled pillows and cushions, lined with blankets. He’s just done sculpting a seat in the middle when Obi-Wan exits the shower, wet-haired, wearing but a bathrobe.

“Oh,” is all his Master says.

Anakin sits down and grins, patting the spot next to himself. “I figure you’ve been tired, Master.”

For a moment Obi-Wan just stands there, staring, eyes glistening. Something lurches terribly in Anakin’s stomach. The smile falling from his face, he rises to his feet, stepping closer. “Obi-Wan? What’s wrong?”

“No, no,” Obi-Wan demurs. He looks down for a second, as though reconvening with some other voices of himself, and when he looks up, Anakin’s heart skips a beat. His smile is so radiant, pink-faced as he is. “I’m… touched, is all.”

Anakin takes his face in both hands, kisses the tip of his nose. “Then sit down with me, Master. And tell me what’s been bothering you.”

“Ah.” Obi-Wan arches a brow, eyes twinkling as he takes a seat amidst softness. “So this is your interrogation technique, hm? Very clever, darling.”

 _What?_ On second thought, true, that was a little badly timed on his part. Anakin reddens. “Well— No, I just, I thought it was good for you to relax after… all that. I mean, it is a place for us to tell each other—”

Obi-Wan hushes, one hand cupping his jaw. “Anakin, I was joking. I know.” He leans in, closer, resting his head on Anakin’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Anakin brings an arm around him; they shift a little against each other in the spot, until they’re both comfortable. Obi-Wan’s heart beats against his side, his breaths fanning out warmly on his collarbone. Anakin nuzzles at his crown, while Obi-Wan details the corruption within the Káchese government, and how the old rift between factions has opened up again. And despite the state of the galaxy, despite it being a war they’re fighting, somehow his smooth voice still carries the case like it’s a bedtime tale.

He didn’t mean to fall asleep, not when such important information is being relayed to him by his fellow general; moreover, he doesn’t want to drift off while Obi-Wan is speaking. But when he finds himself on the inevitable brink of sleep, he does hear Obi-Wan say in a soft laughter: “Goodnight, Anakin.”


	9. sketching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The younglings discover Anakin’s sketchbook.

“Skywalker!”

“He’s here! Come over here!”

“Is Master Obi-Wan here?”

“Hold on…”

“Knight Skywalker!”

“No, Initiate Ueli, he’s  _ Master  _ Skywalker.”

“The Hero! With um, with...”

“Where’s Master Kenobi?”

“It’s Anakin!”

“Don’t call his first name, that’s rude!”

Anakin laughs, getting down on one knee so he won’t topple over under the force of two dozen children slamming at his legs. The younglings sure are a handful, bright eyes and chirping mouths, lekku swinging and antennas bobbing, hands open like little starfish as they all rush towards him on toddling feet. He gives the tired Padawan on crèche duty a reassuring (and long-suffering in empathy) nod and a look of  _ I’ve got this _ , motioning for them to sit down.

“Kids, easy now.” He grins and sets down his pack, after the children disperse just enough for him to make his way to the middle of the room. “Master Anakin is fine.”

“Like Knight Tano calls you?”

“What about Skyguy?”

“ _ Initiate Li’en! _ ” The supervising Padawan gasps, scandalized, sounding eerily similar to Obi-Wan for a flash second.

Anakin shakes his hand  _ Don’t sweat it  _ at Padawan Naide, nudging them in the Force to suggest they relax.  _ I hope Ahsoka never finds out that the kids remember  _ her _ Knighting and not my Mastery _ , he thinks, trying desperately to suppress his laughter. “When you become a Padawan you can call me that, Li’en.” He squeezes the Iktotchi boy on the shoulder, and turns to his pack. “Now, let’s get started, shall we?”

“Are you going to bring us to Ilum?” A small Tholothian grins. Her name is embroidered on her tunic,  _ Ueli _ . From the side desk, Padawan Naide narrows their eyes again, lips parting as if ready to correct the child again in vain. Anakin just smiles. Even the younglings know his reputation.

“You bold little one.” He taps a finger on Ueli’s forehead, earning from her a giggle. Proudly he pats the lightsaber hilt securely hooked to his utility belt. “See this? No Gathering today. Who else has a better guess?”

A Twi’lek boy shoulders forward, puffing up his chest with all the earnestness of an ace student who enjoys the instructor’s attention. “You’re going to draw with us today!”

“That’s right, Mygme,” Anakin says, patting him on the head. Mygme’s short little lekku cross over right behind his neck as a deep green flush spreads across his face. “I’m going to show you how to draw droids.”

“What’s new? We do that all the time here, though,” a human girl pipes up, and Mygme immediately whips around to shush her. “What? We do! We copy them!”

“Do you?” Anakin raises his brows, and then furrows them and hangs his head in an exaggerated expression of sadness. “Oh no, I guess I’m out of a job.” He makes to stand up. “I need to leave, then…”

“No!”

“Don’t go!”

“You’re joking!”

He glances up again, flashing them a bright grin. “Alright, I’m joking.” Some of the younglings visibly drop their shoulders in relief. “It’s different from what you usually do. I’m showing you how to draw the  _ inside _ of droids. From scratch. How’s that?”

Excited murmurs rustle through the circle of younglings. They finally sit down when Anakin settles cross-legged on the floor. He opens his pack, and the lesson on technical drawing begins.

He fishes out the portable holo-projector, secures it on its three-legged stand and props the thing up, lens pointed skyward. A click, and the air around the classroom is suffused with a gentle indigo-blue glow. The first figure floats atop them, a see-through 3D structure in white and grey. “This is a class five repair droid. You’ve seen them before in the Temple; they’re everywhere.”

“Mouse droids! I’ve chased them,” says one tiny voice. A few younglings laugh.

“So did Ahsoka when she was your age. It isn’t nice to scare them, Kalza,” Anakin chides, though his smile doesn’t falter as he switches to the next slide: a blueprint of the mouse droid, complete with close-ups and labels, and notes that are in part typed up, and in part scrawled in neat boxes in his own hand. Young eyes widen as he leads them from model to model, some simpler than others, but all within their understanding. Paper, pencil and rulers (“Very important! You must measure everything and line them up”) are passed around, and the initiates begin to draft, measure, and copy. Their eyes are alight, little foreheads creased and lips pursed in concentration; every once in a while one would look up, at the models projected overhead, staring intently before crouching down over their sheet again.

Anakin watches over their progress, patting a shoulder here and a head there. He promises the timid ones they could surely do it themselves, calms the excited ones who are already demanding to see more, humors the bored ones with new tasks and tales of his own adventure in droid-building when he was only a little older than them. “I started my first protocol droid when I was about seven,” he tells them. “It took me about two years to finish him.” And he brings out sketchpads of his own - nothing elaborate like datapads or tablets, no 3D models such as those in the projection; just pencil on paper. He still has all of his sketches and scribbles from upwards ten years ago, yellowed sheets with curled edges tied up in straw strings between two thick cardboards. There is no writing in there, then, only the Huttese numbering scripts and his best efforts at noting down his mother’s instructions using images and arrows. Then he shows them his later sketches of higher class droids, alongside the beginning of notes in Basic interspesed with Huttese numbers.

“I wanna see more, Master Anakin,” demands Ueli, climbing onto his lap with Mygme following suit. And how could you disobey so many pairs of wide, enchanted eyes.

Anakin rummages through his pack. He has brought more sketches rather than holo-projector datacards for this very purpose. There they are, his newer sketchbooks, be it glued spines in hardcovers or clear plastic and spiral bounds. As the drafts become more intricate, starfighter augmentation designs begin to overtake ethe pages rather than mere droids. Some of his notes read  _ Refer to file _ . “Those are the ones I keep on my datapads,” Anakin explains.

“You can draw on datapads?” Li’en asks, pushing his sheet forward so that he can sit right in front of a wide open sketchbook. “Can you show us, Master Anakin? Please?”

Anakin cedes to this demand as well (how could he not?). With two younglings perched on each knee, and an imperative not to float objects out of his pack in a display of inappropriate use of the Force before Initiates, he has to twist around to reach the graphic screen inside the bag. It’s only when his hand sinks between loops of wires that he remembers the device is still connected to his datapad when he chucked them all into the bottom of the pack. He tugged both devices out, and a third item tumbles out in the tangle: a thick sketchbook, bound in deep blue leather. The paper within is of artist grade rather than the usual thin sort he scribbles on: ivory-tinted, thick and smooth with a fine grainage lush to the touch. Judging by the smears of graphite and ink on it, and the slightly worn plumpness of the whole paper block - which often happens when sheet after sheet curl up under the dampness of a drawing hand - it has been nearly filled. It drops and opens right in the middle, where the silken bookmark ribbon is placed.

And there, clear as day, is Obi-Wan on the page.

It’s almost like dropping a muffin in front of a flock of porgs. The younglings scramble over with hushed, excited murmurs of  _ Master Obi-Wan! _ and  _ You draw people! _ before Anakin can even protest or disclaim. Heat rises to his neck and face, flaring across his cheeks, burning on his ears. As a child Anakin detested his inability to recreate the image of real people in their true likeness, but now that he has learned the skill, in this very moment he mourns it. There is no denying that it is Obi-Wan that he drew - and not just one sketch, but  _ many _ , little moments from a good-morning smile to a serious frown when he pores over the command board to a gentle, sleepy look of distraction. His muse is plainly recognizable, unmistakably reproduced in ink and pencil and even aquarelle on a few pages. Obi-Wan, Jedi Master in soft lines and gently smeared cross-hatching; a lock of hair falling over his forehead, a lock of hair falling before his face as he’s clearly bending down; or just his eyes, with the mole beneath; just his hands, with the writer’s callus on his finger and the dainty bump of a carpal bone; scars on the back of his hand and a smattering of hair that comes up from his forearm all the way to his knuckles; just his head from behind, his neck, his spine, the planes of his back, a startlingly realistic rendering of sweat glistening on his bare torso after a sparring session...

“Hey, kids,” Anakin manages, slowly parting the rows of younglings - less out of patience and more because he’s afraid that any sudden movements will cause them to accidentally tear the thing to pieces amongst them. He grips the book by the spine, and the children all turn their heads up at once like a group of loth cats when he pull their prized discovery away. “We’re drawing droids, remember?”

Padawan Naide gives him a hand for the latter half of the lesson. They get the younglings to copy the correct blueprints, and then jot down notes for customization, and then let them try their hands at designing and modifying before turning their sheets in for Anakin to correct. It all goes well in the end, even as his own sketches of his Master burns like a brand at the back of his mind as he goes about the rest of his day.

Anakin returns from the communication center to empty quarters, even though the night has fallen. It has been a filled day, but not quite so stuffed that he’s too drained to put on the apron and turn on the stoves - particularly when it has the dual purpose of killing time while waiting for Obi-Wan  _ and _ preparing something nice for his Master to come back to. (If the Senatorial hearing is keeping him out this late, it has to be countered with a hearty meal, so the logic goes.) That said, he’s only done chopping the vegetables when the main door slides open then closed, and his love’s signature glows by.

“Master.” Anakin smiles, setting a pan on the stove. “That sure took you a while. How’s your day been?”

“All is fine.” Obi-Wan’s whiskers brush his jaw in a peck by way of greeting, his hand hefty and warm on the small of Anakin’s back. No matter how many times he does this, a shiver still runs gently up Anakin’s spine. “How was your class with the younglings today? I imagine you were in quite a spotlight.”

“So you’ve heard.” His ears must’ve turned pink again, because his Master kisses the top of it, and the shell, and Anakin laughs,  _ You’re distracting me _ . “Who told you, Naide?”

“I know by the look on your face, dear one.” Obi-Wan breaks off and leans his hip against the edge of the counter. Anakin squints at him, though still smiling. “Did you forget your sketchbook in your pack again?”

_ I always keep it on my person _ . “Right, I forgot.” Anakin glances down as oil begins to pop on the pan.

“I was wondering when you’d let me see it.” Obi-Wan says, with a pat to Anakin’s shoulder, as he paces to the cupboard. He lilts so casually - always does, when he wants to show that he means no pressure. A few years ago Anakin wouldn’t have noticed that it’s a conscious attempt. Now he does, and he smiles, nervous though he is.

“You… can, Master.” A whole batch of younglings have seen his bookful of Obi-Wan. Why should he keep the sketches from the very muse any longer? His eyes are down, though. On the bowl of cut-up vegetables, the sizzling oil pan, his own hands.

His Master, of course, notices. “Are you quite sure?” He tilts his head, gently asking. “You never showed me. I understand how artists are.”

Anakin swallows down the thousand butterflies that flutter from his stomach to his chest to his throat, and flashes Obi-Wan a grin. “I never said you couldn’t.” He shrugs, and adds, “It’s on my desk.”

He trusts Obi-Wan’s hand to handle the sketchbook while in the kitchen, where there are a million ways to destroy something so fragile. He doesn’t trust himself to look at Obi-Wan flipping through his sketchbook without being frozen with nervousness, though. It’s always like this when Obi-Wan is there to witness some aspect of him that Anakin has never demonstrated before - the first time he pilots a different class of spacecraft, the first time he learns Form V, the first time he goes on a solo mission (oh how endlessly Padme has teased him for this), - always those roiling waves in his chest, irrational as it is, as he awaits his Master’s reaction…

“This is exquisite, Anakin,” Obi-Wan murmurs. Anakin looks up and catches his gaze. His approval curls gently, sweetly across their bond, encouraging and soft and proves the look of amazement in his eyes to be nothing but genuine. He steps closer, seemingly so surprised he’s not even smiling. His hand has stilled, only on the fourth or fifth page. He takes so much time on each sketch, looking at them as though caressing the lines with his gaze, that Anakin’s chest seizes.

“You are exquisite, Obi-Wan.” Anakin gives him a lip-bitten smile.

His Master seems to be lost somewhere in his mind, submerged in thoughts that bring a rather comely tint to his cheeks. Even his presence in the Force pulses in a way that makes you think of a blushing dawn. “You draw me so beautifully, I…” Now finally the corners of Obi-Wan’s lips dimple, upturned, and his eyes crinkle and brighten and catch a happy twinkle of light. “I simply cannot…”

“Don’t you dare,” Anakin whispers, leaving the pan for a moment to lean down and press a kiss square on that flushed, flustered smile. “Don’t you dare deny it, Master. You are so beautiful, these hardly do you justice.”

Obi-Wan sighs. “In the eye of the beholder, perhaps.” He lays his head on Anakin’s shoulder, soft hair tickling his neck. His thumb runs over a dried, hardened portion of an aquarelle piece. “Much of yourself is in here.”

Anakin blinks, and softens. His heart thumps, loud and resounding rather than rapid. “As much of me is yours.”

Obi-Wan leans up and returns him the kiss, twice as ardent and double the want.


End file.
